


Iced Mint Tea + Sympathy

by lucius_complex



Series: Flawed Design [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-14 03:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you all else melted away - RUMI</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I once had a thousand desires

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**

 

 

_I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you all else melted away - RUMI_

1

Tony had not expected it to last. Not this long anyways.

Certainly nowhere this- domesticated.

In between trying to adjust to his new living arrangements and waiting for the other shoe to drop, six months have whistled past like so much wind, transient and fragile like the brief, sacred space between pulses.

Then winter had descended upon them swiftly, and Tony had looked up from his computer one day and realised that Loki had been living in Calatrava tower for six months. _Six_ months, they’ve been doing this.

 _For six_ months Tony Stark has been the occasional (regular, _frequent_ ) live-in lover of Asgard’s exiled god of mischief, and here he is, still standing, hale and hearthy, deceptively mellowed out. Calm.  

_Alive._

And in the interim months Loki had discovered ceviche, and shifted his beverage allegiance from martini to iced mint tea, and Tony was still in mourning for his lost drinking buddy.

Especially in light of his having recently lost _every_ drinking buddy.

‘Honey, I’m home.’

He came in through the balcony and walked into the kitchen to see Loki about to happily (a god of mischief version of happiness anyways) introduce his chopsticks into a giant bowl of ceviche that was more coriander salad than seafood starter. There is a pile of books on the table, propping up another one which was opened before the bowl.

‘I’m not kissing you if you’re eating that. You’re going to smell like my old granny’s herb garden.’

Out of the corner of his eye Tony can see the chopsticks pause for a moment before continuing to delicately flip pieces of greens about in the bowl.

‘Not that you particularly _care_  whether we kiss or not,’ the billionaire mutters from the bar after it becomes clear that Loki would be ignoring him in favour of his book. Again. As usual.

_‘Hmmm.'_

_‘Please_ don’t tell me you’ve started on yet another book.’

 ‘Go away Stark. I’m reading.’

As usual his eyes are irresistibly drawn to the carelessly laced neckline on Loki’s tunic, sitting like a corset on his clavicle. There was the shade of last night’s bruise peeking from below the nest of silken strings that Loki had not healed. Lovebites. Tony refused to believe he’d missed it, as Loki was usually fastidious about covering up-

But then the idea of Loki deliberately leaving signs of Tony’s handiwork is equally preposterous. To leave it deliberately on display like some... thing that tied them together. Like a brand.

It made Tony’s stomach churn.

 _Six months_. Why was he still alive? Why has it all not come crashing down around his ears?

‘I have to go to SHIELD today,’ Tony announced into his swirling drink.  

 _Finally_ a flicker of attention from the god.

‘Six months,’ Loki said thoughtfully. ‘Time does fly on migard. What do they want?’

‘You know they don’t tell me a thing anymore,’ Tony huffed. ‘But if I was to guess; probably renegotiation.’

He begun to hear the coldness creeping like slow-strangling frost into his lover’s voice. ‘Have they not already divested you of your castle, your riches, your freedom-‘

‘Now honey, you know its not like that because I _chose_ to move out. Spend more time here.’ Although he laughs at the thought of Stark Tower being called a castle. Which he supposed is true in a sense.

‘So you _chose_ to live in exile and indignity.’

‘I chose to live with _you.’_

Tony waited, but the god offered no other opinion. He would have given a lot to know what Loki was thinking then, but he knew better than to wish it.

’They’re still my friends,’ he finally sighed, but somewhere in his voice there is a wince, and Loki had caught that small, involuntary inflection because the god subsequently relinquished his chopsticks and his books and turned around.

‘Thou art a fool, son of Stark.’ Loki lobbed a thin book at him from the pile on his table. ‘Perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with some your migardian literature again.’

Curious, Tony turned the book around; read the title aloud and pursed his lips.

‘All the books in the world, and it figures you’d somehow get your hands on Machiavelli,’ he grunted.

‘All the books of the world, and so little of it worth reading.’

‘That’s why you never catch me doing it. Filthy habit, like diet and exercise,’ Tony put down his drink and looked up. ‘Time to go back to my jailer. A kiss from my scheming bride?’

‘Your jokes are never half as funny as you think them.‘

‘Right through the heart, that was. Cut me to the bone. Goodbye cruel god, I’m jumping off the balcony now,’ Ironman said as he made his way out, the face plate sliding over to muffle his last words.

‘Go, Stark.’ Loki always made the same threat when Tony goes to battle. Or to SHIELD. ‘And there will be hell to pay if you do not return the way you departed.’

*

Now that six months had passed with no incident, they’d come to haggle again with him over new terms, which is simply SHIED speak for ‘give us more of your tech.’

Six months. Hard to imagine, really. Six months to the day that Loki had stood before the Avengers after their battle with the Girati and calmly announced that he would play the good little exiled alien and leave migard alone, so long as nobody tried to arrest him. 

And then he’d looked at Tony with those sly green eyes of his and drawled ‘Why, haven’t Anthony been regaling you of his ever-willingness to show his _houseguest_ all the lovely sights? From- _within_ and without? _’_ And the way he'd said the words had made it filthy and suggestive enough for Steve to pale and Bruce to turn away and even Tony himself to flinch.

‘My brother-‘ Thor had said, but he had been looking at Tony instead, and the look of hurt and disbelieve on his face was still something Tony has been trying to forget till today.

‘Indeed,’ Loki had purred. ‘Let it not be said that Stark is a man unable to keep his bedchambers warm. _’_  

'You fucking liar, Tony would never-'

The god actually chucked then. 'Oh, you were lied to. But it wasnt by me.'

And they'd all _looked_  at him, and that was the day Tony realised he'd chosen sides. Conciously or unconciously. He'd stepped out of one line - but he wasnt sure where, or _who_ the new territory was. A part of him wondered if he ever will.

It had denigrated rapidly and inevitably into a bartering session after that.

‘You will not look for me,’ Loki had warned. ‘Not if you wish your precious city to stay unmolested.’

‘Your magic is curtailed. Father has-‘

‘Do you really think I lack the means to level a migardian city to dust if I wanted to? Think brother, thick as you are. Think of to whom you speak to and tell me, when Loki has ever lacked of methods even as he lacked of means.’

‘And what guarantees are we to have save the words from your lying tongue?’

‘Your little mortal is still alive, is he not? Does he look particularly harmed to you?’ The god’s voice turned from mirth to icy. ‘Therefore look not a gift horse in the mouth, least he chomps at the bridle you try to slip on and severe more than a finger. Now I’m sure you have a great deal to say amongts yourself, so I'll take my leave - and I do look forward to playing _house_ together with you _,_ Anthony,’ Loki bowed mockingly at Ironman. And then he had vanished, leaving Tony to the wrath of the friends he had betrayed.

The accusations of course, rained down hard and fast in Loki’s wake.

‘Tony, how could you? You could have been compromised, and we trusted you- with our lives! You could have gotten all of us killed!’

‘I had _one_ roll in the hay. _One!_ ’ was what Tony had wanted to say.

Instead, what came out was – ‘Loki’s intel saved you.’

Clint had introduced him to a very different side then. _‘You stupid fuck_ , you only know how to think with your dick. What if it _hadn’t_ been true?’

And how does Tony answer what he really wants to say – _because I knew he was telling the truth?_ How the does he make a ring of angry people see something he can’t explain to himself?

‘So this is how low you’d go for your own selfish pleasure; sex with an alien who holds your city for ransom.’ Steve’s voice was broken, low. ‘Is everything is a game to you Stark – playing Ironman? Playing Avenger? Did you get bored, is that why you need to – _him?_ ’

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing to say to anything really, so Tony had saved his breath.

Eventually days passed into weeks and he got sick of running through an endless gamut of excuses and justifications, defending his relationship. They were excuses he’d never said with much conviction – things he didn’t believe, didn’t really care about, because the ultimate reason was still this: that Tony Stark does what he wants, what felt good to him. And he’s never been good at lying to anybody; himself included.

He’d punched Clint the day he heard what they’d called Tony behind his back. Traitor. Turncoat. Loki’s whore. Steve had shouted and Natasha had slammed doors and Tony had caught the look of quiet grieve on Bruce’s face, which had hurt in places he didn’t know existed, but still  he couldn’t-

He couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

Despite the split lip and torn ligaments both him and Clint hadn’t regretted that fight. This Tony knew for a fact.

It was a relief for both of them, to finally be able to release some of that anger and sense of betrayal.

But his friendship with Barton was over, he knew. Steve and Bruce and Thor he might yet win back one day, when the right amount of time had passed and the right amount of words were said. But not Barton. They’d chosen sides, and the decision was irreconcilable.

C’est la vie.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back in action. Semi action. I was diagnosed with multiple slipped disc last week, so uploads will be slower for this fic. But - here be fic, and I hope you missed me as much as I missed you all! <3


	2. With love you don’t bargain.

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

 

 

_With love you dont bargain. There, the choice is not yours - RUMI_

2

He supposed he should count himself lucky that Fury was still using his iron fist, velvet glove approach. But then he was Tony Stark, with much more to bargain with than the average man, and Fury had always been a greedy son of a bitch.

One thing Tony knew for sure was this: the arc reactor will never be on the table. Not even for Loki, and definitely not for himself. But everything else – Tony watched it disappearing between the subtle shifts of boundaries being drawn and re-drawn in the sand, swallowed by Fury’s hungry, reptilian jaws. In return for his inventions and wealth, he received secrecy – something Tony didn’t care much about for himself, but Loki...

 _Were_ Loki ever to be discovered by the world at large, the god would find himself at the hostile end of every weapon of mass destruction ever invented by man. Loki might scoff, but Tony knew what these weapons are capable of because he'd invented most of them; invented the very bitter threat of having the fruits of his own skill and creativity be a possible cause of death to a god - a god who had become his lover.

And so they sat facing each other like old chess masters, he and Fury; and every time they met Tony thought he knew how far he would go before pulling the plug on keeping Loki to himself a little while longer. Thinks to himself that this time, he’d draw a clean line.

Tony Stark had always thought himself a man who understood the nature of secrets, but he was only now beginning to understand that there was no such thing as clean line, not where _secrets_ were concerned. Because really, how much more could he give up? How many patents and intellectual properties, how many schematics?

He thought he’d drawn a clean line; except he’s finding that every day the line changes and Tony watches this happen; doubts trickling like fine sand through a moral crust he once thought solid .

*

Tony is now grounded - apparently _forever_ , but this was a state of affairs that suited him fine, bizarrely. There was a part of him who’d sighed in relief at being forced into incubation. Imagine that. Tony Stark, grateful for a break. Six months with the god of mischief had definitely tamed him something serious

He’s not often honest with himself, a man like him who’d perfected the art of self-denial to fine form; but Tony could admit that the effect of pitching two moody, restless, stubborn, over-intelligent ex-enemies together had somehow served to cancel them both out in the aggression stakes. 

These days, their definitions of impatience was sometimes so diverse as to be comic; thus did Tony find Loki; fastidious, evil-tempered,  _impatient_  Loki, easily pleased by the most routine of acts. These days, if Loki duelled at all, it was usually in the bed, and almost always with his mouth – come to think of it, there is little of trouble from Silvertounge that _didn’_ t begin with his mouth.

But Tony could not complain, not whilst he had Loki to himself. He'd learned first-hand the day-to-day affectations of immortality, such as the willingness to indulge in small acts for hours, even days. 

Because Loki kissed for hours. Literally hours, and did not find this strange or overly endearing. Sometimes he asked, and oftentimes he abruptly yanked Tony away from whatever he was doing and teleported him on the bed; to do nothing more than kiss the remaining daylight away. Tony used to get bored, to want to hurry things along, but Loki was unmovable, and he soon learnt to obey and experience for himself the newness of an endless cycle of stroking tongues. Sometimes he too, forgot the time and the awareness of the world around him, and would finally look up in amazement at the midnight sky, and down at the amused green eyes of his lover.

And then finally, and only then would they make love, and that as well moved fast as well as slow, chased the tails of shooting stars, or moved as imperceptibly and as patiently as planetary rotation.

He wasn’t sure if he could ever give it up.

Tony knows that he’s trying his darnest to stay still, but the lines beneath his feet keep moving, like a gently rocking ocean that seems intent on carrying him further away from all he ever knew, to god-alone knows where.

*

Despite the god of mischief’s assertions to the contrary, Tony _did_ still live and work at Stark Towers - he was not a man in exile, although he now avoids the floors common to the Avengers. His labs are there, along with the Stark Helipad and his G650, and no matter how good a lay Loki is he’s not about to give up Stark Tower in a fit of temper just because of his current status with a dangerous god.

Within a month of their strange relationship Loki had started walking into Stark Towers as if Tony had given him carte blanch to the place. The billionaire had been worried at first, then relieved and finally entertained (with a side of horror thrown in), when the humour of the situation finally settled in. Chief amongst Loki’s retained arsenal of talents is turning invisible, so unless JARVIS reported his presence to the team, nobody knew of his presence, not even Thor (which never ceased to surprise him; weren’t gods have some sort of super sense about them?)

Loki had once sneaked into an Avengers ‘dinner’ – a tense and sullen one to be sure, but still an effort from both sides to bridge the divide – and given Tony a blow job under the table. He’s not sure till today how he survived that experience. Or managed to make it out of there with his pride intact.

Loki’s penchant for mischief kept Tony on his toes, that’s for sure. And sometimes on his other body parts as well. It was just as well he was part human dynamo, to dare consort with a god. Powered from an endless source like the sun, Tony’s body was an irony of endless summers ticking its away to eventual implosion.

But Loki is winter; still and peaceful and beautiful to lull you into a false sense of security before turning completely bipolar and howling through the shutters and ripping out trees. Luring laughing, golden-haired firstborn heirs out with the promising sparkle of snow crystals, only to smoother them under cold wet hands beneath the frozen crackling jigsaw of a lake. 

A completely bipolar weatherstorm. Or maybe ADHD.

Over the months of living together Tony had come to realise that Loki had some sort of internal angst that would keep building up and needed sooner or later to be let out in some short, intense spout, where he would be at his most destructive and fragile. Then, after he’s torn around the room (or the valley, or the street, or Iceland) howling and spraying ice on everything like Jack Frost he’d end up hiding on the ledge of something tall and precarious,(though not at Stark Tower, never at Stark Tower) staring at his precious stars for whole days at a stretch.

He wondered if Loki knew just how predictable his cycles of boom and bust are, not just to Tony, but to The Avengers and even SHIELD.

He wondered if the god of mischief realised how lost he sometimes looked.

*

 


	3. May be children should control the world

 

 

  
**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_May be children should control the world - RUMI_

 

3

The problem with Loki as always, was that he had such an incredibly short fuse. Especially when taking into account that his lover is the bleeding god of _mischief_ , Loki sure doesn’t know how to take a joke.

Hence the god’s battle-ready stance and electric eyes; green sparks shooting threateningly from one outreached hand as Loki faced off with Iron Man on the barren, wintry grounds of Central Park whilst civilians scattered and ran screaming away from their face-off, thinking that Ironman was chasing down some hardened criminal mastermind.

Hah. If only they knew exactly who the slim blond man in black _really_ was.

‘Tony Stark!’ the disguised god hissed. ‘You _dare to aim that weapon at m_ -’

A split second later Tony’s canon-sized snowball hit him directly on his chest, making him stagger in surprise, and it was all Tony could do to try to hang on to his enormous snow gun whilst doubled over with laughter.

‘You will _die_ today, Man of Imprudence.’

‘How does it feel to be the one with the cold wet slush dripping off you this time?’

‘You forget that I am hardly able to register the cold here,’ Loki reminded him icily.

This is true. Loki feels no cold, and outside of disguise purposes his clothing altered not from season to season. Tony hasn’t seen the god of mischief in his full regalia for six months. Loki has put his armour away- to where, he would not reveal. Whilst even the much heftier Thor had exchanged his bare-arms look for leathered fittings and carried a cloak, Loki wore the same black tunic with only subtle variation from day to day; material as light and thin as cotton; although from their incredible range Tony knows no ordinary seams keep his garments together.

The temperature on Loki’s skin never changed no matter where he was or what season – it was cool to the touch and hard, with less give than a human body. The hardness of a god, Tony supposes.

Tony grinned to himself. He was intimately acquaint ted with Loki’s hardness by now.

‘Maybe not the cold, but let me tell you, there was a _whole_ lot of silly on your face when that snowba-’

A spilt second later, the mirth is rather violently knocked out of him by the sudden gale that poured from Loki’s outstretched hands. Twisting backwards, Ironman tried to grab the park bench behind him and ended up tripping over it, head over feet. 

For several minutes he just lied there gasping, the breath knocked from his lungs. Ok. Next time he’d laugh from further away. _Much_ further away.

‘You sneaky little shit. That was against the rules.’

‘Oh, do live a little dangerously, Stark.’

‘Yeah?’ Tony raised a gauntlet, watching his lover’s eyebrows arch in challenge and surprise. ‘Why don’t you try this one for size?’ he grunted, and expelled a cloud of laughing gas.

Loki coughed in surprised, stifled a high pitched whine in his throat, and vanished.

‘Like that do you?’ Tony grinned as he hauled himself off the ground. ‘Good thing I broke out the Playsuit for today’s harmless lil turn about the park-’

A split second later a giant snowball encompassed his head like a second helmet and landed Ironman back in the snow again. When he recovered, it was to Loki’s weight bearing down upon his chest, deceptively light.

‘Do you yield?’

‘What? Speak English man, you’re not on some foreign planet any more.’

Loki trailed a suggestive finger along Iron Man’s breast plate. ‘I’d rather show you. If you like.’

The sudden direction in their conversation resulted in a protracted bout of spluttering. ‘What, in a _public park?_ Are you craz- no, actually that sounds kind of kinky, would we have the time?’

‘You know I do not like to be hurried,’ Loki frowned, although from the anticipatory way he removed Tony’s helmet, the god was definitely receptive to persuasion.

‘You know I’ve never done it up on a tree before, and I’m betting neither have you.’

‘And if we are interrupted?’ Loki asked, which was basically polite-speak for ‘if we are stopped half-way, people will _die’._

‘Have some faith; your boyfriend’s got some aces up his sleeves.’

‘Hmm,’ the god said through lowered lashes, voice smoky. ‘And I do so want you, Stark.’

Tony was already starting to unravel as he struggled to sit up and push his lover off, veins rapidly thrumming with fresh heat even against the cold. ‘God but you make me crazy. Can you get us up that tree?’

‘Yes,’ the god nodded curtly and snapped his fingers before Tony could blink.

A disconcerting _whoosh_ later, they were perched on a giant Lebanese cedar.

‘Uh, quite a bit higher than I anticipated,’ he said, digging his nails into the tree branch as he turned towards his deity lover. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a good ide-‘

The rest of his words were cut off by cold, hard lips, a hand that slithered up his neck to hold him steady, and a body that blocked off the cold and wind, even as his armour was being stripped and vanished piece by piece.

‘You’re starting to know _way too much_ about dismantling my armour-‘ Tony finally broke off to grouse at one point, only to be wrestled down and ruthlessly kissed again. By the time Loki finally relinquished him, they were both naked, and Tony was suddenly confronted with arms that could bend iron and the most perfectly proportioned thighs he’s ever seen on a human being-

Make that non-human being.

‘Dear god, I think I’ve discovered a belated fear of heights-.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you love to fly.’

‘That is, a belated fear of heights straddled from the branch of a _tree_.’

The god of mischief reached over and pulled Tony onto his lap, his legs parting automatically as he found himself squashed against Loki’s chest.

‘Oh, you won’t be straddling a tree, Stark,’ Loki breathed as long fingers cupped his buttocks, effortlessly lifting him as Tony instinctively gripped his shoulders to keep from tilting over, there to stare (to fall, really) into a pair of forest-green eyes dilated with lust.

‘You’d be straddling _me._ ’

*

‘Well. That was a close call. I was so sure those kids were going to look up at some point.’

Loki landed like a cat before him, on the balls of his feet and straightened his tie. ‘Do you even know what a dignified silence is, Stark?’

‘Taking a guess,’ Ironman grunted. ‘Any place I’m not present at?’

‘Quite so,’ Loki said pleasantly, and shot him with a face full of snow.

Tony flew backwards into a tree, mouth flung opened in surprise and subsequently spitting out the avalanche of snow that came crashing down from the branches whilst Loki’s smug, inconsequential voice drifted out at him.

‘And how does Migardian winter taste at this time of year?’

‘Why dont you try it for yourself,’ the mortal grumbled as he picked himself off the bank of snow and watched in bemusement as Loki stuck out his tongue. And that really, was what they ended up spending the next few minutes doing. Privately, Tony figured this was the only time he’d get to stick his tongue out at a homicidal god and get away with it.

They stuck their tongues out at each other and shot (playful, _violent_ ) snowballs and chased all the civilians away from the park with Loki’s mock hail so that nobody would get hurt (or discovered). Tony broke two swings and Loki the monkeybar, but wasn’t that what all that money for and Tony _loved_ it, he loved _this_ , he loved-

_He loved._

It was a mild winter afternoon in Central Park when Tony Stark lowered his snowgun and watched Loki eating a handful of snow that he’d randomly scooped up from the side of a fence and thought to himself, really, the god of mischief had the soul of a child. Perhaps a child damaged beyond repair, but still a _child._

Perhaps their souls connected because they were both children.

If only the other Avengers could see this, Tony thought. See how harmless curiosity looked on Loki’s face. How wide-eyed and affable he could be, when pleased. How surprisingly willing Loki was to go along with Tony on one of his silly migardian jaunts.

That he could even be seen eating snow on occasion, and how Tony delighted in calling him the cheapest date ever-

That he could-

 _‘Opps,_ ’ the god of mischief suddenly said from somewhere, and Tony Stark’s bubble bursts on that mild winter afternoon in Central Park.

In that brief moment, a very quiet moment amidts the snow and patient trees, a grief came over him, and Tony Stark, heir to one of the richest and most advanced cities in the world, felt as if he was on the precipice of loosing everything again. His sense of loss swept silent and feather-light; passing over him the way water would pass through a pipe. And then he was empty again, with only the memory of what had passed.

Then Tony could marvel that perhaps, it was enough that he could see Loki this way. Perhaps the memories they made now would be enough to shield him, to shield them both from what was to come.

So thinking, he shouldered his snow gun and whistled as he walked towards that well-loved voice; like a heat-seaking missile. Like home.

He found Loki in a clearing, staring forlornly at a mould of half-melted snowmen, and what could have been with a fort with some imagination.  

‘You melted that kid’s snowman!’ Tony accused.

Loki looked heavenward in a gesture of ironic resignation. Then he hovered a hand over the ice and a row of icicles rose from it, jagged and sharp as knives.

Tony took a step back. ‘Are you making _missiles_ , because I didn’t bring my white flag and its hard to get my underwear out of the suit- oh, oh wow. This is _beautiful_ \- I didn’t know you could do _that.’_

Loki surveyed his handiwork, an ice castle big enough for ten children to comfortably crawl into. The details were a perfect replica of Odin’s Asgardian palace; a vista Tony had only previously seen through one of Loki’s lurid illusions when they’d stayed up one night and talked about the alien world he came from.

‘I trust this is adequate recompense?’

Tony stared with bug-eyed envy at the minuteness of the details. ‘Yeah. The little buggers don’t deserve this much magic.’

‘It is of no consequence,’ Loki shruged. ‘It will stand till spring.’

‘I think I’m jealous. You never made any ice castles for _me.’_

Loki’s lips pursed into a thin line for several moments before quirking, as if his current display of good humour has been reluctantly dragged out of him; but he finally shruged and gracefully conceded defeat, and Tony internally crowed.

‘And what would you have of Loki’s talents, Son of Stark?’

Tony pursed his lips. ‘How big can you make one of these?’

‘Very large indeed.’

‘Statue of Liberty large?’ Tony asked archly.

A sparkle entered the god’s jungle green eyes. ‘If you wish it.’

‘Then make a sculpture of _this.’_ Ironman said, and struck up a manly pose.

*

So it wasn’t quite what Tony had expected, Loki’s artistic liberties being a touch – _twisted._

But for the rest of the winter of 2013, New York became home to a perfectly rendered, 412 foot sculpture of Tony Stark striking a manly pose in his Dolce & Gabbana Y-front briefs.

The views were particularly grand from the Chrysler and the Empire State Building, and if one rode the elevator up to the Bank of America, on the southeast corner of 6th Avenue, one would be standing in front of a magnificent vista of Tony’s crotch covering an entire ceiling to floor window.

Tourism for that winter alone increased by fourteen million, particularly to the areas beside Stark Tower, which Tony rather fortunately didn’t really go back to much anymore.

As for Fury, well, sufficed to say he lived up to his name.

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful comments and well wishes. This writer is feeling the LURVE<3, and as a result, I'm doubly (triply) inspired! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the new chapter, and see you in a couple of days.


	4. If hell is the only place

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

 

_If hell is the only place where I can touch your hair, I feel sorry for the ones who'll go to heavem - RUMI_

#####  _  
_

 

4

 

Tony knew that he could sometimes be a blindly optimistic man. Sure, some people liked to call it by other, less flattering names, like ‘stubborn’ (Pepper), ‘rebellious’ (Bruce), and even ‘delusional’ (Loki, pffthhh) but Tony soldiered on, because he knew doing things the right way (his way) is the secret to success, and if there’s one thing Starks know all about, it’s success.

Given all this, it’s a little disgruntling that even the buoyantly amenable _Thor_ seemed to have trouble sharing in his optimism of Tony + Loki = Nobody Dead.

‘Man of Iron, I honour you as my brother. But you do not know Loki as I,’ Thor’s expression reminded Tony of one of the painfully earnest accountants that overrun his offices at the end of September.

 ‘Whatever it is, I’m _sure_ you’re going to tell me all about it - _again.’_

 ‘Since he was a callow youth has Loki ever been glib at weaving his stories to charm the maidens of Asgard.’

‘Yes, but _I’m_ hardly a maiden, Thor.’

‘So skilful is mine brother’s tongue that he has beguiled the Allfather himself many times-‘

‘I’m skilful too,’ Tony shrugged. ‘Ask Pepper, she’d be the first to confirm I’m the A+ bullshit king o’ the hill.’

‘You are not as similar as you hope to think.’

‘You’re right; I could never get my hair to lie still like that.’

‘Shield brother Stark, thou art not listening,’ Thor chided.

‘And you Thor, you’re not _looking_. None of you are. Loki and I are together, yes, but that’s because Loki and I also have a _deal._ And that deal is so long as there’s no harm done and nothing explodes; yours truly is not _giving him up_. Are we clear on this?’ He held up a hand when the viking essayed to speak again. ‘I’m not going to break my promise to Loki, and there’s all there is to it.’

‘Why must you- you do not know what you risk-’

‘For the umpteenth time, I’m not helpless, Thor.  And if it makes you feel any better, I promise to use protection.’

‘Protection?’

Tony sighed. God save him from Asgardian gods who took everything so literally. ‘Yes Thor. I have a suit, remember.’

‘It is not your safety I fear from my brother. It is your heart.’

‘It’s all right big guy. Bunch of people tried to mess with it before.’ Tony tapped the arc reactor on his chest. ‘Nothing I haven’t been able to repair.’

However the only thing that joke earned him was more knitted brows, which was starting to really get on his nerves.

‘You take this too lightly. I had hoped that you would see reason-‘

Tony ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘‘Reason? Why don’t you share  some of _yours_ , like why you insist week after week on trying to pick my brain and slip ideas into my skull whilst claiming to back me up; I mean is Loki still even family to you? _Am I still_ your shield brother, Thor?’

The blond god looked offended. ‘Of course you are and will always be.‘

‘Just like you and Loki will always be brothers, huh.’

Thor sat back amd regarded him sternly. ‘Mine brother and I have a connection that spans twice a thousand years, something you will not understand as a mortal, Man of Iron. There is _none_ that will render our bond; our lives and deaths are as intimately intertwined as lovers.’

‘Yet you seek to render  _my_  bond,’ Tony snapped back, for he misliked that hollow voice, the arrogant, echoing silence that followed this dark pronouncement. This sort of swishy, double entendre was more Loki’s talent, and Tony mistrusted any similarities between the two gods; mistrusted the long history shared that that he could never hope to understand.

‘For your own good!’

‘Oh yeah? Well, you are not very convincing, Point Break, you haven’t been for a long time.’

‘You sound ever more like him now, did you know?’ The deity looked at him with sorrow-filled eyes. ‘Tell me, is mine brother well?’

‘He is.’

‘Does he ever ask-‘ Thor looked away when he caught the expression of pity that Tony can’t quite hide, and cleared his throat. ‘Do not grieve for me, Brother Tony. I know Loki does not spare his thoughts for me.’

It was a shame to see such a bright boisterous light brought down like this. Tony was reminded, of all things, of Tinkerbelle’s light going out when the world lost faith in fairies.

‘Thor-’

‘Never you mind,’ the blond god said, his voice gruff. ‘Remember what we have spoken about these last months, Man of Iron. All said and done, he is neither human or Asgardian, but a creature of _Jotun_. Therefore his actions cannot be precipitated-‘

‘Humanity is not all it’s cracked up, last I checked. And Asgard has its fair share of traitors, thieves and turncoats.’ Tony pushed his chair back. ‘This is pointless talk and I have to get back, his highness will be starving by now and prone to fits of tantrum, which I’m sure you’d know all about-‘

When Thor’s giant brows knitted together, they looked like wresting caterpillers; the type you see on the Sasame Street puppets. _‘Loki?_ Starve?’

‘Yeah, we always eat together. Evil overlords have dinner too, you know.’

‘Then I fear mine brother has deceived you.’

Tony could feel a slow and familiar irritability grip him again. ‘Yeah? And what it is about now?’

Thor frowned.  ‘I am not trying to cast stones between you, shield brother Tony, but we do not need to eat every day. The practice has ever been one formed around fellowship, not truly the specific need of nourishment. As gods we can go without eating for a week and suffer no ill effects.’

Tony’s mouth fell open. _Fellowship._ Suddenly he realised why Loki had sulked for days that one time he’d asked Pepper to join them for dinner. If dinner wasn’t compulsory for his lover, then Loki showed up for one reason and one alone-

He showed up for _Tony,_ and had all along – right from the get go.

Well. How about that; you’re never past the age of blushing, apparently. Learn something new every day.

‘You look happy, friend Stark.’

The blond god was watching him shrewdly; Tony gave not a flying fuck because he suddenly needs to be somewhere else post haste. Somewhere in an apartment in downtown Manhattan, an alien god of mischief was making ready to pretend a hunger he didn’t feel  in order to ‘have fellowship’; and Tony would go home and give it to him, not sit here and listen to Thor’s well-meaning but misguided slander.

He tapped his watch pointedly. ‘Love to stay and chat but and I have a dinner to make; and just so you know I’m not coming back next week or ever, if all you want to talk about is more s-‘

‘There is something else,’ Thor suddenly blurted out. ‘Although I had hoped it would not come to this-‘

 _Heaven save him from Asguarian attempts at furtiveness._  Tony huffed. ‘You know buddy, you’ve never been the best person at keeping a poker face. Now are you finally ready to spill all, after months of arm-twisting me into all these small talks?‘

‘Son of Stark-‘ The emotions that crossed Thor’s face were probably the most complex he’d ever seen on the usually artless deity, and the closest to defeat.

Then finally he sighed, and the sound was like a thousand bellows, and for some reason a shiver ran down Tony’s spine because he didn’t like the timing.

‘Yes. I will tell you. If you will comport yourself a moment longer; by the nines, I will tell you.’

For one moment he was tempted to leave regardless, even though he knew all their ridiculous tea sessions had been building to his moment for months. Today was the day of Thor’s big reveal; the one he had hinted at and danced around since news of his brother’s affair was brought to light; the one that involved Something Horrible In Caps That Was Going To Happen To Loki if Tony didn’t drink copious amounts of peppermint out of delicate red porcelain and pry it out of the thunder god real soon.

If Tony was honest, he'd annouce that he didn’t want to hear any of it – that he was sick to death of secrets, tired of trying to weed out truth from lie and friend from foe. Tired of always trying to find his footing in alien, unfamiliar territory.

But unfamiliar territory was where Loki had come from, and if Tony ever wanted to understand him, then he needed to wade into this marshy, amebous space.

With a muttered oath he sat back down again. ‘Spill them beans then, Campbell.’

‘I will tell you what I know. But I do not know everything.’

‘Then who would? The Allfather?’

‘He would know more than me, but no more than a warrior would, albeit one with the most powerful scrying glass onto the world,’ Thor exhaled heavily. ‘We who choose the way of the sword do not walk the silken spider-paths of fey sorcery. It is anathema to us.’

‘So Loki’s magic is, something of a.. rare thing, in Asgard?’

‘It is. Alas, from youth this path mine brother has showed the most interest and promise in has always been considered a perversity. All assumed initially it was a product of being overly attached to his mother the queen, but as the years passed and the mark of his path solidified ever more before him did we realise Loki’s true shape – as _ergi_ ; deviant.’

Tony shook his head, fighting confusion and gnawing irritation at hearing his lover referred to in such exclusionary terms. ‘What do you mean by that? And what does his sorcery have to do with this big fate thing you keep hinting at?’

‘I was but a babe when it happened, but I will tell you what I know. It is the darkest portents of the downfall of my world which mine mother, the fairest Frigga revealed. For she is not merely Queen of Asguard and permitted to sit on the Hlidskjalf, she was once also Asgard’s most powerful sorceress, and until Loki took her place, her prophetic vision has no equal.’

‘Are you saying- so Loki and mom can see into the future because they do that magic wavy fingers thing?’

‘Nay, shield brother Tony, only Loki has it, the day he surpassed our queen mother in skill. The Prophecy can but inhabit the body of one sorcerer, and differently for each. It has since passed on to mine brother, but I fear it has also changed him much.' Sorrow carved lines of weariless into the god's face. 'He was.. carefree, before that came to be.'

‘And what did mammy say to you about this vision, big guy?’

Thor pressed his lips together. ‘That I may not reveal onto you as an outsider.’

Tony blinked. ‘That’s all you’re giving me to go with?’

‘I cannot reveal more, for the fate of mine world hangs in balance;’ Thor confessed, ‘-as do my own destiny as Loki’s brother and therefore both his foil _and_ his shield. I am what stands between mine brother’s own survival… and the survival of Asgard.’

‘Well then. Bully for you. Clearly nothing stands in the way of your dutiful ways.’

‘ _Listen_ to me, Tony. There are things preordained- things set in motion a millennial before your time or mine that none may interfere with.  Loki’s path is _preordained._ He has been doomed for darkness from birth-‘

Anger scored his veins, crept into his voice. ‘This is ridiculous; I’m not listening to this dipstick shit a second longer.’

‘You are mine sworn brother in all but blood, but _you do not know_  the true nature of that you are binding yourself to. Out of the love I bear you both _–‘_

 _‘Then tell me what the flying fuck I don’t know.’_ Tony shot out of his chair and grabbed his jacket.

‘Stark!’ Thor’s voice broke as he called out after him. _‘_ If you follow Loki, know that you _follow him onto hell,_  and we cannot save you there. There will be no turning back.’

Tony turned around, his voice a frigid counterpoint to the smoking temper within.

‘If h _ell_ is where he ends up, then hell is where I’ll bloody _go,’_ he avowed before violently slamming the door shut.

*


	5. Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you thought I'd forgotten this story dincha? Dincha? Muahahahaha!

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

 

 

_Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go. - Rumi_

 

5

Loki has announce cryptically through the intercom that he would be ‘putting together desserts’ tonight, which Tony had a foreboding feeling would somehow involve a blowtorch and watermelons.  He didn’t mind reworking the kitchen, but fervently hoped there would still be a home to come home to by the time Loki was done with his version of ‘desserts’.

And because he flew too fast and fretted too much without recalibrating the proper angles for landing, he ended up smashing all ten toes into the concrete balcony. Hard.

‘Fuck. _Ohhff_ dammit, fucking ouch!’ Violent swearing peppered the air as Ironman tumbled to his knees and slammed face first into the thankfully shatter proof sliding doors. It took him several moments to recover his breath, and several minutes more to pick himself up again-

And thus crawling on hands and knees was how he came to spot the not-insubstantial girth of a beefy, red-haired man lying face down in his living room floor.  

‘Ok nobody panic,’ Tony said to himself, and took a great deep breath. Then he started hyperventilating.

First, hide the body. No, no, somebody would find it. First, he had to figure out a way to vaporise human organs and then find them both an airtight alibi; what the fuck has he been thinking, shaking up with Loki of all people - six months of consorting with a murderous _god of lies_ had clearly done a number on his common sense-

‘There you are,’ Loki strode up to him grinning, and Tony will never, ever admit that 1) he almost screamed like a girl again  2) his first emotion at seeing the Asgardian god safe and chirpy was a deep, bone slacking relief.

Then righteous anger took over. ‘What the fuck, Loki. Do know what sort of trouble –do you even _know_ what you’ve done?’

‘I have found myself a Danish – ‘ The trickster god placed his hands on his hips and practically beamed, which on Migard was practically a first. Or recent second.

‘No Loki, that’s a Dane.’ Tony paused in his lecture to stare. ‘Is he _dead?’_

‘Really Stark, how would he make me danishes if I killed him?’

‘Ah,’ was all Tony said. Then he took his helmet off and sighed. ‘I suppose I should have seen this coming after you bought out all the pastries at Balthazar-‘

Loki’s expression begin to darken. ‘Will this creature not make me danishes when it awakens?’

‘I doubt it.’

The god grimaced. ‘I shall kill it. This city of yours frequently fails to deliver on its potential, Stark.’

‘I know dear evil-heart,’ Tony soothed, mentally calculating the probability of the unconscious man in their living room waking up in Central Park and believing it was all a bad dream. ‘I’ll just help you dispose of your… disappointing Dane and get us a delivery from Balthazar, shall we?’

*

Tony ended up not perusing the whole Dane kidnaping episode, because food has always been their sacred ground between them, operating as ceasefire; neutral territory, shared history, and a place to argue for sheer harmless fun rather than individual dogma. It has come to be a space absent of symbolism in a relationship where every movement or word could be (and often is) taken as a declaration, a line in the sand. One whose stakes daily climbed, although neither Loki nor Tony were clearly ready to address or define it.

And now that Tony knew that part of Loki’s godly arsenal included dispensing with sustenance altogether, these dining sessions have become all the more precious. He guarded his meal times with Loki jealously, careful to preserve their carefree spirit – perhaps too careful, for once or twice after that faithful conversation with the thunder god Tony had looked up and discerned his lover’s gaze sharply searching him at dinner. But the god remained easy to please and gracefully inquisitive with everything new Tony shoved at him; even the really exotic stuff like sea cucumbers and whale milt, so they hadn’t talked about it.

They also don’t talk about how Loki had lately become more morose and inscrutable, more stuck in his books. Perhaps most strange of all was the fact that said books were all standard midgardian garden variety; nothing spactactular or arcane. It's become difficult to get a word in edgewise, ever since Loki had gotten it into his head to introduce himself to literature. Tony had encouraged him initially, a part of him secretly relieved whenever Loki’s attention is diverted to anything relatively harmless (compared to, say making worm tunnels in the middle of New York City). Except now it’s getting a bit insulting, having to constantly compete for attention with an inanimate object.

As of last week there’s even a book scotched taped to the bathroom mirror, so Loki could read whilst brushing his teeth; which Tony used to find incredibly endearing but now merely knits his eyebrows at every time he passes by.

It's also become became impossible to lure his lover away when he was in the grip of a passage; and when Loki was _not_ reading, it had become harder to make him laugh. The god had also seemed to stop reading for pleasure, had taken to flipping through his by-now staggering collection of Earth books like he was looking for something. All Tony’s polite enquires for assistance was met with a cold glare and a door slammed in his face.

Tony blamed the books.

Whatever the god had taken to musing about, Tony misliked it, because he knew he's involved somehow. It was evident in the way Loki would suddenly look up from his readings and his eyes would narrow, or his lips curl but not in amusement. There were nights where Tony would wake up with a start at some ungodly hour to find Loki propped up on one arm, idly tracing the smooth metal circle of his arc reactor with a shuttered look on his face.

Tony groaned. ‘Are you going to kill me tonight.’

‘No, Stark. Not tonight.’

‘Pity, because I’m so dead I wouldn’t have felt a thing.’

‘Yes, pity,’ Loki had echoed, and Tony had forgotten about it in his hazy spiral back to unconsciousness, but weeks later the words had come back to him; lingering and mysterious as smoke.

So, mealtimes. Mealtimes, and random food journeys, and the all important _sex_ ; and in between, putting up with Loki’s temper and his increasing tendency to stare at Tony with an intensity that bordered on frightening; then ignoring him completely for days. Tony took what he could get because he’s an opportunist, and he wasn’t stupid, and there’s a part of him that starting to hoard memories so that when stuff finally happens, he’d still have something left.

Something to hang on to. Something to take into the future with him.

*


	6. Love is a world in itself

 

 

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

  
_Love is a world in itself. Either you are in, at the center…or you are out, yearning – RUMI_

 

6

Tony’s Pokemon-slippered feet paused at the arch of the door, then paddled resolutely through the bedroom carpet and came to a halt before the bed.

‘Do you want a drink? I could fix you one.’

When Loki simply grunted and turned a page with his ring finger, Tony kicked off his Pokemon slippers and sank a knee the bed with his tumbler of scotch, a look of pure determination on his face.

‘How about a massage?’

‘I’m _reading_ , Stark.’

Fine. He supposed he owes Pepper flowers for all the times she’d willing stepped aside for Tony’s machines.

‘What are you reading?’

‘The Bible,’ Loki replied with lazy intensity, and Tony obligingly choked on his nightcap. ‘I must say it’s simply been an _illuminating_ read _.’_

‘I _do_ hope you’re not getting ideas from that one. It’s a bit out of date, method wise.’

‘It is astonishingly malicious, for an epistolary tome. Famine, disease, cities laid to waste; one might be _quite_ inspired to take a leaf from it.’

‘Uh, it dispenses kindly advice too; turn the other cheek? Do onto others? There are a couple of things I totally don’t mind doing onto each other-‘

Loki tapped the dark leather binding with two fingers. ‘Apparently if one was to change ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ to ‘Jesus of Mars’ the New Testament will turn into one of your popular ‘science fictions’.

Tony’s lips quirked. ‘Where the hell did you get _that_ little nugget from?’

‘The internet,’ Loki shrugs, a simple gesture that delights Tony with the unguardedness of it.

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read off the internet.’

Loki turned long-suffering eyes at him, but tossed the bible onto the nightstand with his usual heart-stopping accuracy and turned around on the bed to accommodate Tony snuffling into his personal space

‘Actually I shouldn’t believe anything your primitive species says. ’

‘Touche.’

They stayed embraced that way for several blissful moments before Loki finally broke the silence, as Tony knew he would.

‘Stark.’

‘Hmmm?’

‘What did mine brother want today?’

‘The usual.’

_‘Stark.’_

_‘_ It’s been six months, and my name is _Tony.’_

Loki’s voice if possible, withered even further. ‘Stark, if you wish us to spend the night in peace-’

‘Fine, I’ll spill all, you know I always do,’ Tony huffed, sitting up again. Loki’s interrogation sessions were the natural by-product of his meetings with Thor, always irritating in the extreme. Initially Loki had ignored these meetings because he was stubborn and proud and would rather die than admit to feelings of insecurity or doubts where his brother was concerned. Then one fine day Thor had revealed the truth of his Jotun birth right to Tony - whole months earlier than the god himself had planned to, and the proverbial shit had hit the fan.

Tony remained surprised their tower was still standing from their altercation that night. After that, he'd  _still_ had to suit up and go save from Thor from his brother’s frothing rage, although he’d stood aside with grim satisfaction and let Thor take a few blows first before stepping in to pull them apart.

It had taken awhile and a great many sexual favours, but Loki had been persuadable that Tony didn’t bloody care what colour of blue Loki turned- he’d never found a shade he didn’t like.

All things considering, it could have turned out a lot worse. Still it was a night he wasn’t in a hurry to repeat. Tony had never seen so many snakes in _one_ place before, and Thor had thankfully refrained from sharing with the Avengers the multiple places he’d been bitten.

Good intentions of otherwise, he swore Thor was getting nose to nose with Clint in the ‘be as bothersome as possible’ stakes. If not for the countless olive martinis Tony foisted upon Loki to keep him good tempered and pliable each time he came home from Thor’s many ‘brotherly’ blackmail attempts, Cavalatra Tower would be slightly worse of wear, and not only because of Loki’s increasing cooking experiments.

‘I’m waiting,’ Loki announced haughtily in bed with his arms crossed.

‘I’m gathering my thoughts. Truth be told we hardly spoke about you, there was some blathering on about some prophecy or other, but Thor didn’t go into detail so it’s no big deal-’

He knew it was the wrong thing to say when Loki suddenly froze beneath him.

 _Which_ prophecy?’

‘There’s more than one? Fine- stop glaring I said _I'll tell you_. But in case it wasn’t clear earlier Thor never told me the prophecy, only that one existed, and that you’re taken over your mom’s role as sort of a… prophesizing host.’

‘A host,’ the god echoed dangerously, biting out each syllable. ‘You will elucidate, Stark.’

‘Babe-‘

Tony abruptly found his tumbler of scotch yanked away and held for ransom.

 _‘Now,_ if you please _.’_

‘Fine, fine, don’t get into a snit about it.’ And then he took a deep breath and told him everything, leaving nothing out. Loki stayed silent throughout, asking no questions. His eyes flared visibly at mention of his mother queen, but otherwise the god sat crossed legged on the bed, still as stone.

‘As Thor explained I am an exile, _ergi,_ ’ he says bitterly when Tony was finished. ‘There is no other fate awaiting me.’

‘Come on Loki, this place could easily be-‘

‘Home?’ the god’s laugh was brittle, mocking.

Tony could feel the weight of his ribs increasing, as if he was carrying something foreign in his chest - like a stone. A part of him resents it; thinks its too early. Doesn’t want feel like this.

Doesn’t want to have this conversations, yet here they are.

The mortal licked his lips. ‘Yeah, you heard me. Home. It could easily be, if you let it. Sure, it’s not half as grand as Asgard. We have no magic apples, no bifrost. But you’d be wanted-‘

‘Do not lie to me!’

‘You’d be wanted by _me.’_

There was a look of desperate contempt in Loki’s eyes. ‘Do you think you’re good enough to distract a god, beyond a few ephemeral years? You, mortal shell that cracks so easily? Fall about a god's feet like flies and burn out like firebugs in the blink of an eye? ’

‘Good enough for your _bed_.’

‘You fool yourself, mortal’ Loki sneered. ‘You are a temporary distraction, no more.’

Tony forced himself to breathe through his mouth, exhale through his nostrils. ‘Many, many things about us tell me otherwise.’

 _‘Us,’_ the god of lies scoffed. ‘If you believe this, you are deluded beyond saving.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Why Stark, didn’t mine brother inform you? I am Loki, god of lies.’ A laugh, both low and sweet and brittle. ‘I am Loki, whom you must _not trust_.’

That hurt. He could feel the bruise it made on his chest, invisible but _there_ and he knew such wounds will be slow healing. He knew of course, that Loki’s words came edged from a lifetime of betrayals and disappointment, but such knowledge didn’t lessen the pain; they simply made Tony more willing to bear them, less surprised when he felt them cutting into his skin.

Instead of letting it escalate Tony laid his hands on the side of Loki’s face. ‘You wouldn’t make it as the god of lies in New York, babe.’

For a good moment there was only stunned silence, and Tony could tell his lover had ceased to breath, even his heartbeat has stuttered, and it was all wrong; it felt wrong but here they were nonetheless, on some rollercoaster with no direction and even Tony could tell that neither of them knew where they were headed.

Hand cart to hell, one way, and Tony had jumped on board.

‘The time in exile here has made me weak;’ Loki suddenly laughed, and the mocking self-disgust apparent in his voice. 

‘Don’t do this, babe. Not tonight.’

Tony can feel it in the thrum of his veins, in the subtle tension of their bodies, the way they fall silent. The climbing stakes neither anticipated, nor wish to address.

‘I do not wish to argue with you,’ the god finally said in a low voice; an admission that he would have rather died than reveal not so long ago. Tony knew this, and the knowledge filled him with an ache that is difficult to dispel, followed him about even in the harsh light of day.

‘I don’t want that too.’

It would not be a night for making love, but he leans into Loki’s cool presence, allowed the heaviness in his chest to be soothed by moonstone skin and dark strands of hair that brushed against his face.

He needn’t look up to know the god was lost in thoughts, having sacrificing the night’s peaceful interlude to ponder things beyond Tony’s mortal imaginings. Then, to his surprise, Loki suddenly shifted his weight and summoned a book from the bureau.

 Then he begun to read aloud.

_‘Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost…’_

Tony cleared his throat. ‘Did you just trade off the Bible for Dante’s Inferno?’

‘I am gratified to discover you are not as philistine as you pretend to be.’

‘I’m just saying that as bedtime reading its lacks a little something.’

A huff tickled the top of his head. ‘You wish for fairy tales, Stark?’

‘I’m saying as _adult_ stories go, it could do with a little more sex, booze, couple of bullet holes, Tony Stark doing awesome things with his mouth to the god of mischi-‘

‘I wish to read and you, Stark, will listen,’ Loki pushed his burrowing face away with a warning hand and a growl and continued. _‘-through me you enter into the city of woes-‘_

‘Trust you to make a beeline for the creepy stuff.’

‘Be silent,’ Loki scowled, and continued to recite in his fluid voice:

_'Through me you pass into eternal pain:_   
_Through me among the people lost for aye._   
_To rear me was the task of power divine,_   
_Before me things create are none, save things_   
_Eternal, and eternal I shall endure._   
_Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’_

‘Deeply romantic,’ Tony croaked from his pillow on Loki’s chest. ‘Think I feel a swoon coming.’

_‘Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice.’_

Loki’s admittedly beautiful reading voice melted like ice crystals, chilling the air, and for a long moment, neither spoke.

Finally Tony raised his head. ‘Are you planning to lead me to hell?’ He meant it as a joke but it comes out different, all inflections wrong, and Tony regrets it when Loki falls silent, his heart a low and steady beating beneath his cheek.  

‘I am a god, banished, my true powers a shadow of itself. I can but pick my way amongst lesser beings, seeking their protection and ignoring their vapid taunts. He rolled over, pressing his weight into Tony’s chest. ‘Tell me Anthony, if I am I not already in hell?’

‘You’re kept in great comfort then. Nobody ever told me eternal damnation meant flights to Tokyo and sleeping on 600-count Egyptian cotton.’

‘What do you fear, mortal?’

‘Much.’ He reached out to touch the flawless face above him. ‘But right now my biggest fear is losing you to whatever’s out there, and-’ Tony trailed his fingers from the god’s face to his heart. ‘-to whatever’s in there.’

Instead of replying Loki flipped a page, and then, with a smile as sharp as a knife (although it seemed to cut both ways), continued;

_‘This one, who now will never leave my side, kissed my mouth, trembling-’_

‘Hey hey hey. I’ll have you know I did no such trembling-‘

He made a sound of surprise when the god abruptly flipped their bodies and hushed him with a smooth, sinuous roll of hips, locking him down with dark unfathomable eyes as the last syllabus of his recital melted into the air.

Tony could feel his eyes roll to the back of his head. ‘Unghh, not fair-‘

His lover ignored him and continued reading. _‘Do not be afraid; our fate_ _cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.’_

‘Loki-‘ he was starting to pant at the weight pressing into him, eliciting a thousand nerve endings because the fucking prick seemed to have picked up the art of playing Tony like a harp. ‘I thought you wanted to _read.’_

‘I am. Reading. _You_.’ Tony found his arms yanked above him, pressed under a hard forearm and Loki’s hips rocked into him. ‘Would you believe in _me,_ Anthony? Place your flawed human logic aside, to come to know a god?’

‘Jesus Loki, _stop.’_

The pace of his lover’s ministrations was maddeningly gentle, inexorable, unduling on Tony’s skin and he _ached_ , both inside and out, and Loki has _stupidest_ timing ever to pull this kind of _shit_ now when they were both feeling so vulnerable-

‘Answer me.’

‘For a god -‘ Tony’s teeth gritted, ‘-your timing sure is _shit.’_

_‘Anthony.’_

‘Yes! _Yes, damn you,_ ’ Tony forced his dilated eyes opened, certain that the connection was clear and focused as the words burst out of him; ‘I would follow you. I would follow you into hell _– Loki –_ into hell. _’_

And then he could speak no more as his mouth was captured in a mouth that sealed his promise to a ruthless, unforgiving god.

*

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter didn't exist actually; its written specially for Heidi. I've no words really, so please let me thank you the only way I know how.


	7. My home has no address

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

 

7

_My home has no address;_   
_my tracks leave no trace._   
_I am neither body nor soul--_   
_What can I say?_

_-RUMI_

 

‘Your condiment-named assistant left an avalanche of messages,’ Loki reminded as he left their ensuite bathroom, leaving the towels on the floor and the door open in his wake.

‘Pepper?’ Tony scratched at the bristles on his chin, smearing toothpaste all over it. ‘I suppose. Its only two weeks to Christmas.’

‘You will tell me about this impending ‘Christmas’ that seems to have stirred half the world into such a flurry of anticipation.’

‘Have you not been reading up plenty? I thought I saw the Christmas Carol lying about the other day.’

‘A pointless exercise in sentimentality, then,’ Loki groused from the bed.

‘It’s a sentimental season,’ Tony replied as he slipped under the sheets. ‘You and I can bah humbug until the cows come home, but out there in the big heady world of consumerism and sentimentality, people lap up the stuff.’

‘It is customary is it not, for an exchange of gifts to take place during this ‘Christmas?’

‘Yeah, but we don’t have to babe; as I said, its all commercial hogwash.’

For a long moment Loki said nothing. Then: ‘So you do not intend to participate in a gift exchange with your Pepper?’

‘Fuck me, Pepper. I suppose I’d have to get her a gift. And for James. I’m sure Pepper won’t mind picking something out for the guys back at the Towe on my behalf-’

‘But not for me,’ Loki cuts, as cold as icicles before it drops and severs a vital tendon; ‘-the alien lover. Not for him.’

Tony blinked, figured out his faux-pas belatedly and back-peddled. ‘It’s not that. I thought you wouldn’t be interested; although if you wanted we could always go out for dinner; Christmas comes with its own arsenal of recipes and alcoholic traditions, which happens to be its one redeeming feature-‘

‘Do not bother to console me, Stark, I am not a child,’ Loki had snapped, and shut off the lights with a snap of his fingers, leaving Tony upright and blinking in surprise at the sudden dark.

 _Yes you are a child,_ Tony thought. But the hour was late and even he knew better than to continue an argument when so many things could go escalate. Grumpily, he’d wrapped himself up and gone to the living room to glance through Pepper’s many reports.

How the hell would Tony have known his lover would want to celebrate Christmas, a day dedicated to the birth of Christ? Loki is a _pagan god_ , for Christ sake. Weren’t they celestial competitors or something?

He should have known Loki wouldn’t let the matter go however, because the following night the god stuck a finger into his chest and demanded to know what Tony wanted for Christmas.

‘I thought we weren’t doing this,’ Tony had stuttered. ‘Besides, I already told you I don’t want anything.’

He could see the impatience creeping over Loki’s face. ‘Tell me already.’

‘I like it when you read to me. You have a sexy voice; you’d _kill_ a recording of something with a lot of porn-’

‘Stark,’ Loki’s voice had gone quiet. ‘You seem to have forgotten to whom you address.’

He could feel every micro muscle in his shoulder tensing up. ‘My divine lover?’

‘Your _lover_ can tell when you’re lying,’ the look Loki was giving him was almost patient, if a little strained. ‘What ails you, Stark?’

Tony knew he didn’t quite manage to hide the guilt flashing across his features.

‘Its nothing. I-‘

‘You hide your true thoughts, and I would have it addressed between us.’

‘Well. I could… I could remind you of a certain promise you made-‘

The way Loki’s expression suddenly froze didn’t bode well for their conversation. ‘What promise?’

‘Babe, wouldn’t you rather go to sleep and keep this for tomorrow mor-‘

‘No,’ Loki pulled his covers away. ‘You will tell me _now,_ Stark.’

Irritability tightened in Tony’s throat as he snapped, ‘My heart, ok? You’ve promised to fix my heart, and it’s been six months without you once bringing it up-‘

‘I made _no_ such promise,’ Loki hissed back as he pulled back against the headboard.

‘Right. _Right.’_ Tony stared at him, throat tightening with anger at Loki’s duplicity. ‘Sure you didn’t.’

‘Stark, I would _remember_ such a promise.’

‘Of course you would. No surprises there, oh god of lies.’

The god inhaled. ‘Do you think I would deliberately deny you-’

‘When have you ever done other than _exactly_ what you wanted to do?’

‘And what of it?’ Loki scoffed. ‘Make some sense, Stark.’

‘Tony. We sleep in the same bed, for fuck’s sake-’

 _‘Yes we do,’_ Loki snapped, ‘and that should be enough for you-‘

‘Is it? Is it enough that you grace me with your presence now? As long as I’m useful, at least?’

The god looks at him, unblinking for a moment. Then he rises from his waist, graceful as a cobra about to strike.

‘Little birds have been whispering in your ears.’

‘For god’s sake Loki, between your _lying_ and your paranoid _delusions_ I’ve had it up to here-‘ 

‘You’re being melodramatic Stark, if only you’d listen to yourself.‘

‘Tony! My fucking name is _Tony_ , does changing consonants from one to two make you ill?’ The incensed mortal flung the covers away and strode out of their bed, so angry he could barely keep his voice from shaking. ‘You’re the guy who lives in my house, spends my money, who _fucks me but refuses to call me by my first name-_ you’re the guy, the so called _god_ who can’t stop telling the world about his immortal powers but can’t take a few shards out!Forgive me if I’m disinclined to listen to _you.’_

By the time he finished speaking, Loki’s face had completely drained of colour. ‘I see then that I am no longer welcome.’

He pulled his hair in frustration. ‘Dammit Loki- Loki that’s not what I said.’

‘Indeed Stark, one fancies you have no clue what you said’ the god said, as he rose from the bed and stood hovering over Tony, voice still soft and fluid; ‘nor to whom you speak. You are fortunate, Stark, I am not of a mind to harm you for your words. If only you knew how fortunate.’

‘Are you- are you _threatening_ me,’ Tony took a step closer. ‘-for real?’

‘As you seem to be such an expert on how to distinguish lie from truth, mortal, I shall leave such judgement in your capable hands,’ the god hissed, and vanished.

Tony is left staring into the empty space, betrayed and stunned and empty.

Was everything between them suddenly over? One hissy fit, and suddenly over?

Tony waited, like a fool. Resisted sleeping and stood in the balcony shvering, waiting for Loki to come back. The sun came up and Tony watched it swallow up the night. Tried to think of freedom. All the things he could now do that he couldn’t whilst living with someone as fussy and _insane_ as the god of lies. But he found he hadn’t the capacity to imagine his new found bliss; nor enjoy this sudden freedom. Instead he felt hollowness. He felt unteathered, which is hilarious because he had gone and teathered himself to the most unstable organism in the nine realms.

Hilarious. 

Pepper had told him once (Pepper whom he couldn’t speak to anymore, because it _hurt_ ) when he’d been drunk out of his mind and spitting vitrol at the ghost of his father; defiant and _furious_ with grief and hate and _whyfatherwhy-_ Pepper had wrestled him to the ground, wee slip that she was; she had slapped his face and poured her own hot tears upon on him – and she had forced Tony to face the truth of his heart. Who he really was. What he really wanted, and how simple it could all be, if only he dared.

There are certain things Tony wants which he had never been able to bring himself to admit. Some days, he thinks Loki is cut from the same mute, silent cloth.  But sometimes the world could tragically be too big, it could be too big for a voice that could only be a rustle. The world could tragically be too loud, too busy, too fast.

But Tony had never been good at staring into a mirror.

*


	8. My soul is from somewhere else

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there - RUMI_

8 

Tony pulled his face plate off. ‘Seriously guys, I don’t like the look of this.’

‘Tasha,’ beside him Steve exhaled sharply as Natasha rolled the ghostly form over with her boot so the other Avengers could see its… face. Sort of face. ‘That thing could still be dangerous.’

‘No, that thing is _dead_ ,’ Natasha announced coolly. ‘Whilst _I’m_ still dangerous.’

Steve’s face started colouring, as it always did of late whenever the Black Widow was around. ‘Well, what if it was acidic slime-‘

‘I don’t think so,’ Bruce said. ‘The nature of slime is to protect delicate surfaces, if they weren’t so chameleonic and so goddam fast, they’d be easy to kill.‘

‘It’s not from here, that’s for sure.’

Their latest enemy stumped Tony. They looked like cuttlefish, with fast wavy appendages and floated around like Casper, stinging their prey by passing the equivalent of six hundred volts of current through them. Luckily, they’d found that out by virtue of Thor, whom as god of thunder was the only one of them through whom electricity could pass unharmed.

‘Fifty points for astute observation,’ Clint said sarcastically. ‘But then, you’ve had plenty of time to observe alien life forms, haven’t you Iron Dick?’

Tony clenched his fist. ‘Why don’t you and me take this outside and have it out, sharp eyes, so that other people can actually do their real work instead of try to get between us?’

 _‘Enough_ of this,’ Steve said sternly. ‘I need you both to work together, ok?’

‘Clint started it.’

_‘Tony.’_

‘Fine.’ Ironman slammed his visor shut. ‘I’ll do recon, and Nat can cover me.’

‘No Tony, you were injured in our last mission, I don’t want you charging through-’ 

‘It was a scratch,’ Ironman protested, although he winced at the memory; not so much of the battle itself, but Loki’s subsequent wrath when his lover had discovered the lacerations running along and under his left shoulder. 

But Loki was gone. He hadn’t come back to Calavatra Tower in three nights, and Tony was beginning to lose hope- and sleep.

And alright, maybe some of his sanity as well. Which explains why he had doggedly insisted on coming along on today’s mission on 2 hours of sleep, grounded or not grounded.

‘Nevertheless-‘ Steve protested.

‘Just send him in, the cuttlefish heads will probably recognise an alien lover when they see one and whilst Ironman is having tencacle sex we’ll go in and blow their squidy little heads off.’

‘Enough,’ Steve said sharply. ‘I won’t tell you again, Clint.’

‘Whatever,’ Hawkeye snorted, ‘I’ll take recon with Nat, you pussies can stay here.’

Rather than argue, Steve just nodded wearily. ‘Thor and Bruce can double back the way we came and go through the doors we missed.’

The blond asgardian nodded before reluctantly moving away, his eyes fixed on Tony with an intensity eerily reminiscent of Loki’s. Tony resolutely ignored him.

Once they were alone, Steve placed a gloved hand on Ironman’s shoulder.

‘Have some faith, Tony. The team will come around. SHIELD has more than half way come round.’

Ah Steve; poor solid simple-minded Steve. Sometimes Tony wondered what the Cap would say if he knew the sort of tricks SHILED was pulling behind his back, clawing over ever more of Tony’s tech in return for keeping Loki out of incarceration.

‘Thanks Cap, I sure ain’t holding my breath.’

‘I’m sure Nick will find a solution,’ Captain America said staunchly, and Tony tried not to roll his eyes. Steve the patriot. Steve the _soldier_ , and god help him if he ever found himself out in the cold with no master because he would just put his head between his paws and _die._

‘Yeah, sure,’ Ironman says, because Tony has no heart to disabuse him. ‘One day.’

‘Tony. I really need you to _talk_ to us and tell us y-‘ Steve begun to argue, before the detonation they subsequently heard ripping out from the direction of the corridor almost deafened them.

‘What the _hell_ was that?’ Tony shouted into the aftermath, as lights blinked and plaster trickled down upon them both.

Captain America’s face filled with dread as he made for the tunnel. _‘Natasha-‘_

Tony grabbed his shoulders without thinking. ‘Steve, no-‘

The subsequent blast rocketed them clear away from the tunnel’s opening. Ironman landed on Captain America, eliciting a huff of pain.

Things very suddenly took a turn for the worse when they saw the Widow staggering in without Clint. ‘They’ve managed to change the fucking _air_ ,’ Natasha spat in a breathless voice before doubling over, attempting to suck oxygen into her lungs.

Tony strode grimly towards the entrance and yanked opened the door in to peek into the building corridor. A cloud of heat and leftover static enveloped him, so strong it literally disoriented him for several moments.  

‘Jesus Christ, something has literal _cooked_ the air here, what the shit would it take to do this-.’

‘Shut the door dammit, can’t you see she can’t breathe!’

The widow shook out of Cap’s arms. Her face was ashen, blood running down a gash on her forehead.

‘Hawkeye couldn’t get out in time,’ she gasped, voice almost in tears. ‘I barely did.’

‘Its ok, I’ve got a decent filter on the suit and I’m getting readings, apparently when calamari passes through we get _much_ lower oxygen rates-‘

‘Ironman, get back here and  _wait_ for Thor to come back before you get yo-‘

Then it was too late, because Tony was face to face with the calamari welcoming committee.

‘Huh. You looked bigger _dead_. Water retention much?’

And then he shot the stupid thing with the highest setting of firepower he had. ‘Welcome to America, asshole.’

His satisfaction turned into wrath, however, as Tony watched it veer into a wall, static jumping off its skin in sparks, and completely disappearing through it.

‘Son of a bitch.’

‘Ironman, you’re outclassed, get back into the room now!’   

Before Tony could even reply, a bolt of god-knows-what went through him. Shock took over his system, and for a brief second he didn’t have any control of his suit.

Then Captain America was beside him, shieldless, dragging him through the door. The Widow helped him sit and fanned his face once the face plate slid off with a hissing sound, hot to the touch.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine, the suit absorbed most of the shock,’  

‘I think one of them might have followed me back here,’ Widow confessed. 'I'm sorry.'

‘No harm done, now all we have to do is - what the flying fuck-' His mouth dropped open when his suit suddenly informed him that power was down to 6%.

‘The dumb things _eat_ electricity. It somehow managed drain all the power off my suit!’

‘Looks like Thor is the only one who can go out there without getting hurt,’ Widow surmised.

He was now useless, _benched._ ‘Someone’s going to _pay_ for this,’ Tony raged.

Steve paled. ‘Would Thor be-‘

‘He has Bruce. It evens the odds.’ Natasha said quietly. ‘They would be our best option.’

Nobody wanted to point out that if Thor and the Hulk didn’t make it back, chance would be a fine thing that any of them would. They had no choice but to wait;  either for reinforcemets, or for the fighting to come to them. As much as Tony hated to admit it Thor was their best hope of surviving this.

If there was one thing in the world Tony was terrible at, it was waiting.

‘Where the fuck is Thor and Bruce?’ Ironman would irritably ask every few minutes. ‘They should be done by now.’

Apprehension and morbid curiosity warred for dominance in Tony’s brain. Time skittered by on spider’s feet, and still no Hulk or Thunder god. Whatever they they fighting, it had fried the comm lines between them.

‘They’ll come,’ Captain America said bravely with Natasha lying slumped and exhausted on his shoulders, although Tony was beginning to think they were being over-optimistic, Thor was just one, and lord alone knew how many of those electric space eels were out there floating about. He keeps his opinions to himself, because nobody asked him and the last time Nat had  punched him, it'd fucking hurt. 

He lasts another two minutes before Widow opened her eyes, face clear and blank. ‘They’re not coming.’

Tony didn’t think twice; he slammed his visor down and turned towards the glowing furnace.

‘Tony where are you going?’

‘Thor can definitely take care of himself, but I can go back and get Hawkeye. I’m the most insulated in the suit.’

‘No,’ Captain America said. ‘The temperatures are too high, even for your suit.’

Ironman didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Sorry Cap, but since I’m already in the dog house-‘

‘Tony, no-‘

‘Stark, don’t do it.’

‘Dammit Ironman, I’m responsible for your goddamn life, get back here. Tony!’

Tony saluted him with one gauntleted fist. ‘Sorry Cap. Never been a good team player.’ 

And then he dashed off, praying to every god and then some that his teammates would have the good sense not to follow him.

He darted through corners and burning electric equipment. After a blast that rang his ears like bells, the rooms were staggeringly quiet. Between the shitty visibility and dangerously low levels of breathable air, things were taking a turn for the worst. And these long, vaulting corridors with low ceilings more reminiscence of tunnels than anything? Not Tony’s favourite setting to play in.

He cleared one floor, ran up a flight of stairs and kicked open a blood splattered door, feeling like a character in some bloody zombie apocalypse game. That Tony now realises only sick screwballs played for shit and giggles, so they were going into the bin the minute he gets home, and maybe Loki would get a mumbled apology of sorts, or sushi. Probably sushi.

If he ever came home.

There were dead bodies on the floor, bent into unnatural angles. All the office clothing made it look so surreal, somehow.

His suit was now powered at 4.5%.

‘Clint! Where the fucking hell are you?’

‘Here,’ a voice wheezed at him from a distance, and Tony thought it might just be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

He followed the voice through what looks like a file storage facility, and then he followed the slick red line of red to where Hawkeye was glaring up at him from under a pile of loose ceiling plaster and several collapsed bookshelves.

‘You stupid fool,’ the bowman wheezed at him; mouth and nose covered with the shirt he’d ripped off. ‘even _Widow_ knew when to get out.’

‘It’s just that it’s _so_ hard to stay away from you,’ Ironman cooed as he shifted the furniture away and squat over him to examine his wounds. ‘Although I agree, we _really_ have to stop meeting like this.’

‘Its getting old,’ Hawkeye agreed with a gasp of pain as Tony started shoving some of the fallen debris off him. ‘Don’t worry about me lover boy. Leave now, before they zap ya again.’

‘Haven’t you heard the newsflash? I love getting zapped by aliens,’ Tony grinned. ‘Alley-opp big bird, we’re busting you out of the coop whether you like it or not.’

After several grunts he managed to haul Hawkeye up with one arm and stager out of the room, but Clint was already beginning to choke; and Tony couldn’t pass him the suit so he could breathe.

He sees them finally, glowing white with lashing tentacle tails, and the sight just  _super_ creped him out. Not for the first time, Tony wished his lover was less alien antagonist and more… avenging. Yeah. Except that wasn’t ever going to happen since he’d picked the wrong brother. Something Loki himself had pointed out before, mouth twisted and something suspiciously like jealousy crossing his face, which had been flattering but ewww.

‘Ok so you got two options,’ he said as they begun the slowest decent down a flight of stairs in Tony’s life. ‘Option one, you let me give you mouth to mouth-‘

‘Just tip me over the banister and be done with. I’ll even give you a leg up.’

‘Hey, I do know how to do CPR, I have certificates; or two I’m going to put you over my shoulder with your ass in the air, and you’re going to like it.’

‘Behind you-‘ Hawkeye coughed.

Ironman straightened released a solid round of ammunition indiscriminately into the air around him. ‘Time to die, fucking calamari things.’

‘Not working,’ Clint said grimly. ‘I’ll only slow you down.’

‘Time for Plan B then,’ Ironman announced, and when Clint turned a hopeful face towards him, he picked the man up, threw him unceremoniously on his shoulders, and sped off the way he came.

‘You suck,’ a voice growled into his shoulder blades.

‘Yeah, I just saved you from explosive tentacle sex, try to be a little-‘

A sudden blot of electricity skittered past them and crashed into an outerlying wall, sending lights and office equipment crashing.

‘Run!’ Hawkeye yelled.

_‘I’m running.’_

Another cuttlefish showed up, then another and yet another.

Clints voice was muffled when he spoke. ‘Do I get guns with option two?’

‘I’m getting too much practice at dealing with divas,’ Tony muttered to himself even as he relinquished two semi-automatics and hoisted them to Client over his shoulder. Then he pushed everything he had into his almost exhausted suit and started running for their lives, just as an entire _swarm_ of weird slimy aliens started heading their direction.

The creatures were slow, but whatever weird thunder they shot out of their tails was _not._  Bolts of electricity was already starting to fry the air.Tony concentrated on running, whilst Clint unerringly released charge after charge at the morbid swarm of cuttlefish. How he still managed to shoot straight whilst choking on unbrethable air and bouncing like a sack of potatoes down a flight of stairs, Ironman would never know. 

They took the final turn, and time slowed down as Tony stared at the door at the end of the corridor where his friends were waiting. His suit was down to 2%, bare minutes before completely shutting down; it would be its own death trap once it powered down.

He wasn’t going to make it. It would either be him or Clint.

In the mother of oddly-timed moments he thought of Loki then, and madness; and well, how good madness could sometimes be.

There’s just enough charge left in his suit to throw himself at the door and push Hawkeye through it, as far away from him as possible. Just enough time to brace both his hands and feet at the door and cover the frame with his body.

He thought he heard Thor shouting his name - thank god they made it back because _somebody_ had to get the team out - before the bolts of currents hit the suit.

Predominantly though, he'd wished it was Loki that'd been calling out to him instead.

When the current hit, Tony had expected the arc reactor to burst into flames, like a firework. He'd expected rainbow flares, something pretty as a sending off. Perhaps it did, Tony wouldn’t know. His vision flooded with a white light that blinded him, and after an enormous burst of pain had wrung every muscle in his body into knots, it became dark and staggeringly quiet. Empty.

His dominant memory was lying on Loki’s chest, listening to melodious passages from _The Count of Monte Cristo._

His dominant thought was _I never got to hug Pepper goodbye._

His last whisper, more wistful than he'd like to admit, was _I should've told Loki I-._

 

*


	9. I want to see you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“I want to see you," a soft voice whispers._

"Know your voice."

"Recognize you when you  
first come 'round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come   
into a room you've just left.

Know the lift of your heel,  
the glide of your foot."

"Become familiar with the way   
you purse your lips  
then let them part,   
just the slightest bit,  
when I lean in to your space  
and kiss you."

"I want to know the joy   
of how you whisper... 

_"more”._

 

Sometimes there are dreams, slipping like silk againts his skin - not in visions but through softly whispered words. 

They say his name. Sometimes. 

Tony sleeps.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem by RUMI


	10. Smiles come best from those who weep

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. Smiles come best from those who weep - RUMI_

 

 

10

Tony wakes up and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

And glory be, the _pain._

‘Tony.’

The mere sound of Pepper voice makes involuntary tears slide out of Tony’s swollen eyes. Ouch. She always had that knack of making him instantly emotive. He clutched the small hand she had placed in his; trying to express how badly he’d missed her, how he’d mourned her absence. How sorry he was, for Pepper was his only family and Tony _missed_ her. He missed her like a hole in his soul, like a part of him had been set adrift when she had closed the door on his choices and walked away.

His voice is a rasp, gutted with blunt forks but he forces it out, afraid of the chance being taken from him. ‘Pepper, _please-_ please forgive- _’_

‘Oh, Tony _don’t._ We’ll talk later, I promise. _’_ Pepper moves away, and Tony almost sobs when her hand moves away. ‘Loki is here.’

 _‘Loki?’_ He tries to lift his head.

The god swims into view and his face is pale; eyes like open wounds upon his face. He looked at Tony, and his eyes dart quickly to Pepper and back to him, but he does not move from his spot standing some distance away.

He wore his Asgardian armour with the helm removed, and Tony stared with confused worry at the spear he held in his left hand. Its on the tip of his tongue to ask why the god was clad in battle gear, but just then Bruce moved into view, blocking him.

‘You’ve been out for almost four days,’ Bruce says, and all Tony can hear is the exhausted relief in his voice. ‘It’s good to see you, Tony. You’re going to make a lot of people really happy to hear that you’re awake.’

‘Great, fabulous- need to get up now-‘ Tony yanked open the covers. ‘Nuff sleeping.’

The doctor pushed him gently back down. ‘Absolutely not, buddy. You’re under imposed bed rest for a week, if not more.’

‘No can do doctor, this is _my_ tower, and-‘

 _‘Anthony,’_ Loki speaks out, and Tony can immediately sense Bruce and Pepper stepping around the god and backing away as he approached.

‘What?’

But now that his lover had Tony’s attention he seems unwilling to speak. ‘You- you must- you must lie back down. You are far too fragile to g-‘

‘You’ve seen my morning face, babe; four cups of coffee and I-’

‘Lie back down now or I shall _tie_ you down.’

Tony affected a sulky tone. ‘Slave driver.’

‘In your own ancient past, mouthy slaves would find their clavicles sewed to a strip of leather bound to the back of a wheel. You know Stark, this is not so long ago for a god.’

‘Nice. I feel all tingly and healthy already after hearing that.’

Out of the corner of a very swollen eye Tony could see Bruce standing to the side, an expression of reluctant amusement on his face. 

Tony wanted his friend back so bad, he ignored his tender wounds and hammering head and hammed it up to the hilt.

‘Jingle Bells, I feel like dying,’ he groaned theatrically. ‘Everything hurts. Give us a kiss and say adieu, for I see a- _Hark!_ What fluorescent light on yonder ceiling calls-‘

 _‘Do_ shut up, Stark.’

‘Tis the east, and Loki is my moon-moon.’

His lover crosses his arms and raised a very displeased eyebrow, but somewhere to the side Tony can hear the sound of Pepper’s half-strangled laughter, and his heart leaps.

‘Bury me in the Mark VII, because it’s got the prettiest shade of red. The Midnight Rouge, it’s my favourite. Remember my suffering-‘

‘You will suffer more if continue to insult me in this vein, grievous injury or otherwise.’

‘I’m an innocent man. It’s the morphine talking.’

‘There _is_ no morphine in your bloodstream, you foolish human.’

‘Whadayamean, no morphine?’ Tony’s voice begins to climb. ‘The whole _point_ of being in hospital is because of the drugs, it’s in my bill of _rights_ and you can’t tak-‘

Bruce cuts him off to address Loki with a sharp voice. ‘I administered the drugs myself.’

Pepper's hand flew to her mouth. ‘What has Tony been on all this time?' 

‘I appreciate your help, Son of Banner, and apologize for my small deception, but my magic is much purer than any chemical compound your medical means may device.’

 ‘-goddamn violation,’ Tony grumbles, but nobody is paying any attention to him, so he slips back into sulkily sipping water from the plastic cup Pepper had handed him and grimacing. Couldn’t even give him a decent cup of coffee as a welcome-back.

No decency _at all_ for injured heroes. 

‘I see,’ Bruce said slowly, and then shrugs. ‘Well he doesn’t seem worse of for it.’

Tony crowed triumphantly. ‘And that! That’s my clean bill of health right there, as the good doctor says-‘

‘I am not an MD, as you damn well know,’ drawled his traitorous, uncooperative friend.

Tony opened his mouth to argue. ‘Same difference dude, and I want up and out of these t-‘

 _‘Anthony.’_ The god’s voice softens in octave but triples in threat, and Tony knows it’s time to withdraw his foot from the line before it gets hacked off.

‘But darling, you know how-’

Loki’s voice became a whiplash. _‘Enough.’_

‘-how I‘m still weak, and so shall stay in bed,’ Tony amended hastily. ‘And behave.’

‘Do not assume for _one_ minute I am fooled.’

‘Yes dear,’ he murmurs, meek as a lamb. ‘Whatever you say, dear.’

Out of the corner of his eye Tony could see both Bruce and Pepper raising an eyebrow at Loki’s endurance, and the way those eyebrows disappeared completely at the domesticity of Tony’s reply.

They hadn’t really seen them like this before, and Tony would milk it as much as he could, while Loki was still unguarded with exhaustion and slack with relief and speaking as if they were the only two people in the room.

If there was _ever_ a time to get his friends to see Loki the way Tony himself did, now was the time.

Now or never.

He put on his best whiny voice. ‘Jingle Bells, I’m _hurt._ I want chocolates. And my Starkpad, and a magicky massage.’

His lover’s voice is as dry as bone, clearly not fooled for a minute. ‘Anything _else?’_

‘And I want you to kiss my bruises away.’

 ‘I shall return tonight,’ Loki replied, the promise of death in his eyes.

Tony’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm before he could teleport away.

‘Thank you, darling.’ _For coming back._ ‘Thank you for staying- for being here.’

The god of mischief merely looked at him for a good many moments, before he finally sighed. ‘You are foolish to think I would do otherwise, Stark.’ And then he disappears.

Then Tony looked at the other Avengers who had arrived at the tail end of their farewell, mouths hanging open, and shrugged. ‘What? You _all_ know he’s my boyfriend. _’_

*

They sat together in the bed, back against the headboards and knees drawn up, like children. They supported each other’s weight, slack against warm shoulders, half a back pressed together, arms intertwined.  

Pepper shook her head.

‘He did not leave your side the whole time. Not to eat or sleep. He was dangero- he was unstable for a while. Refused to let Bruce near you until Thor calmed him down.’

Tony’s mouth fell open. _‘Thor_ calmed Loki down?’

Pepper shrugged. ‘Who knows the secret power of sibling gods? I never had one, and neither did you. I know Thor promised Loki something though. I heard them arguing about it, but I couldn’t hear what it was about.’

‘Well. Looks like a lot happened whilst I was out of it, most of it good – alright _good-ish_. Maybe I should get electrocuted more often.’

Pepper pursed her lips. ‘You’re not out of the doghouse, Tony.’

He cuddled more persistently into her body heat, nosed into her like a small animal seeking comfort. They were _opposites,_ he realised. Loki had always been cold, but Pepper was always warm to the touch. ‘Can I sleep on your bed tonight, mummy? Just on haitus, then I crawl back to my doghouse like a good boy.’

‘Oh, _Tony_. I want to be angry.’ She shook her head. ‘I _am_ angry. But I don’t want to lose you, not like this.’

‘Why do we have to? Lose each other?’ Tony asked, voice muffled in her clothes. Breathing in Chanel and the green tea Pepper always drunk and the frail, warm-blooded temperateness of her skin.  

‘Have you gone and fallen in love with an alien lifeform? Because if you are, that’s the worst decision you ever made in a lifetime of bad decisions, Tony Stark.’

‘It’s cruel of you to use the L-word, Pepper. To a _sick_ man. Maybe dying.’

‘He can’t be trusted, Tony. I refuse to believe you don’t know that.’

Tony sighed. Pulled slightly away, although he kept their shoulders flushed together.

‘I know that.’

‘So why are you doing this?’

‘Because I can’t keep my dick in my pants?’

‘Maybe Steve would believe that, and everyone else.’ Pepper looked so sad, that Tony’s heart ached. ‘But you would still be _here_ if it was just about your dick. You’d still be an Avenger. You’d still be the Tony I used to know. But you’ve left that all behind, haven’t you?’

He didn’t answer, and her eyes glittered with tears. ‘Oh Tony. I’m _losing_ you. So many paths laid out for you; so many things that could have _been_. And you choose this one.’

He looks at her, all the things he never learnt how to say. Things with which there are no words, only history, thick chords of them, weaving bittersweet longing and heartache and visions of things that had been and things that could never be.

But his choices had long ago spun them into bridges that he’d crossed, and then those bridges had dissolved behind him. There was nothing he could do.

Tony could feel a sort of thick desperation try to claw itself out of his throat, and something in his face must have gave it away because Pepper closed her eyes and laid her forehead against him, and they leaned against each other as long as they could.

Sharing comfort. Saying goodbye.

He must be getting maudlin in his old age, because he likes to think their tears melted together, check to check like this.

‘Oh, _Tony._ ’

He kissed her delicate fingers. There was nothing he could say.

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


	11. Open your eyes

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

_Open your eyes, for this world is only a dream - RUMI_

11

He woke up to moonlight spilling over the sheets and long fingers carding through his hair.

‘I woke you,’ his lover said, and Tony caught his hands as they moved away.

‘I missed you,’ the dark haired mortal said quietly. ‘Don’t go.’

His lover said nothing for a good many minutes, merely sat in shadows that hid his face almost completely from view. By the time Loki finally spoke, Tony was bemused by his own capacity for patience.

Somewhere along the line, he had learnt to let the quiet fill the space between them. Who’d have thought; maybe an old dog _could_ learn new tricks.

The god’s voice was soft and honest when he spoke.

‘I cannot heal your heart, Son of Stark.’

Well. Tony had expected a serious conversation, but not _this_ serious.

He struggled to rise from the blankets, to pull his legs out and sit beside the god, fingers hanging stubbornly on to Loki’s hand despite how awkwardly adolescent it made him look to flail about the sheets. Loki didn’t comment on it. Perhaps they both needed this anchor, if they were going to have this conversation.

Finally upright, Tony asked bluntly; ‘Cant heal my heart, or wont?’

The pale fingers in his hand splayed themselves against his palm in the moonlight, marble smooth against his rough ones. ‘I haven’t the means or magic to do so without quite possibly killing you.’

‘So there’s a chance?’

‘The odds are not in your favour,’ Loki shook his head. ‘It is not a risk I am willing to consider.’

Tony swallows, trying to dislodge the ball of bitter disappointment stuck in his throat.

‘No matter. Hey. I’m all but used to it by now.’

‘However,’ the god says into the quiet after a minute, ‘I know of something that might. If you are receptive.’

Loki opened his palm, and the illusion of a golden skinned apple spins to life before Tony’s eyes.

‘Wow. Is that what I think it is?’

‘An immortal apple of Iðunn,’ Loki spoke in a hushed, intimate voice which Tony subconsciously moved nearer to, ‘A single fruit  alone would grant you a lifespan beyond words, and a reparative power that even Odin himself cannot hope to rival.’

Tony stared at it. It was a perfectly round sphere, with golden skin that glittered, mystical and unknowable.

‘It will not keep you immortal forever,’ Loki cautioned. ‘A few thousand years perhaps, if one is born a god; and likely much less to a mortal, if ere it works at all.’

‘Cool. Do I get spiffy magic powers if I eat one?’

Loki’s eyes turned flat. ‘No.’

‘I guess you’re saying no human being ever had one of them apples before?’

‘Tis the food of the _gods_ that you speak of which such inconsequence, Stark. Its value is unchallenged, and it is the pearl of Asgard’s most jealously guarded treasures. It will not be easily acquired, not even by me.’

‘Do you mean to ask Odin? Or Thor?'

Loki shook a rueful head. ‘I would be flogged for asking alone. Your earthling’s brand of breath-taking insolence is not taken lightly on Asgard. Had you been born there, Odin would have sewn your lips shut eons ago, the way he did mine.’

‘You know what, you can keep your Asgard and your immeasurable lifespans, because you people have the shittiest human rights record t-

‘Do not be brazen with me,’ Loki warned, and something in his voice immediately shuts Tony up. ‘I needs know your answer, for great are the preparations for such an undertaking.’

Tony shifted, knowing they were turning some sort of corner, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

‘Sure I want to get healed, and I’m curious, who isn’t? Its the immortality part that doesn’t exactly thrill me. I mean, look at Cap, who wants to live like an ancient relic-‘

‘Be careful there.’

‘-purely in human terms,’ Tony finished smoothly. ‘I don’t think mortals are meant to live forever, you know. Frail bodies. Frail brains. You should know, you live with one.’

Loki made a wave with his free hand, and the floating apple dissolved into the air. The gaze he turned to Tony had a weight to it, a solemnity he could not identify, but it made the hair at the back of his neck stand up. ‘If you wish to save your heart, you must eat this apple, Stark. There is no other way.’

‘Tell me something first? Why make this offer at all?’

 _What’s in it for you,_ Tony didn’t say.

‘A promise made, the night ere we first… lay together,’ Loki shrugged. ‘I would see this debt between us resolved.’

 _You’re lying,_ Tony instantly knew. But he would get nothing more out of the god, not tonight.

 ‘I feel like I’ve turned into fucking Snow White,’ the mortal frowned. ‘Are you the good witch or the bad witch?’

‘You tell me, Anthony. Are there good gods and bad gods; or do all gods do as they please?’ Loki’s gaze turned inwards, light years and constellations away. A distance Tony could not hope to breach.

‘I’m just saying-‘

‘Anthony. We did not part well ere you left, and the next time I saw you, I was-‘ The god’s hands clenched, and Tony flinched as all the glass in the vicinity shattered, all the more appalling because it happened so quietly, with neither explosion nor flourishing magic fingers.  

He was going to have a field day explaining the sudden lack of intact windows to Pepper tomorrow.

‘I’m ok now babe. Thanks to you.’

Loki looked like he had stopped breathing. ‘We must address this... mortal shell of yours, before such things happen again.’

‘So what; I’ve got the Mark XXI and I’m not fragile-‘

The god gritted his teeth. ‘You are fragile to _me,_ Stark. In mine eyes, your mortal frame is as brittle as a twig in my hands.’

Tony surveyed the heap of glittering glass around them, so fine as to almost look like sand. His lover refused to look at him, and Tony’s heart reached out for him. For all that is vicious and wrong with Loki, there is something equally fragile and gentle within him; a carefully hidden wellspring of want and devoutness that bubbled like hot spring water, burning everything in its wake; scarring Loki himself for all that it came from him. Tony had been pulled into these waters via the random currents of their connection, but even he knew the god had ever only showed him but the surface of his true emotions.

The shallowest of waters.

Tony would never get to see this dark and hidden place, no matter how he tried. Only Loki would ever truly know the depths of his own heart, the strength and danger of his utmost desires. And in this Tony thinks his lover is cursed with the most marvellous and tragic self-awareness. To know himself, to want; and knowingly destroy himself in the want.

Such was Loki’s tragedy and to some miniscule extent it was Tony’s as well.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Tony finally said, not daring to promise otherwise, for anything more would be a lie.

The god searched his face, looking for something. Tony had a feeling by the tightly controlled line of his mouth that Loki hadn’t found it and was bitterly disappointed. But his voice was smooth and his face was shuttered as he agreed to his Tony’s response.

‘Very well Stark. A single turn of Midgard’s moon. I trust that will be sufficient time?’

_No._

‘Yeah. Yeah, that’d do.’   

He took the fastest route to breaking the morose air around them, by pulling Loki forward by their clasped hands and kissing him. The god went, mouth slipping open to welcome Tony’s tongue, urging him into a deeper kiss with the slant of his lips.

He swiped his tongue over the endless colourm of Loki’s throat, enjoying the ripple as the god swallowed thickly. Encouraged, he laved his tongue upon it over and over again.

‘Stark,’ Loki finally groaned against his face, cold breath tickling his tender ears in a way that made Tony squirm. ‘Do not tease me, not tonight.’

Loki caught him by the neck and dragged their mouths back together. The kissing went on forever, until Tony could no longer think about anything except the tactile sensations being exchanged between them and the ever-present want gradually uncurling from his gut. Their mouths opened on each other again and again, urgent, wet, mindless.

Loki finally broke away and dipped his head to nose against Tony’s clavical. Cold hands swept over his ribcage and above the hollow of his hips, whilst Tony shifted uncomfortably, remembering how the god told him once that he could smell the scent of Tony’s decaying body.

He had a feeling on someone like him the smell would be in an advanced state of decay; particularly where his liver was concerned.

He was suddenly very self-conscious about what sort of scents Loki could possibly be picking up. Does he smell like a pickle? Could his lover sense the nature of each individual injury under Tony’s skin? Not for the first time he wished Loki was mortal, or at least _knowable._

A painful scrap distracted him.

‘Jesus, Loki, teeth-‘

 A growl answered him, primitive and rising from somewhere deep within his lover’s body and somehow completely shutting Tony up with the heartfelt, frighteningly honest depth of it and stealing the breath from his lungs.

Tony squirmed. He didn’t want this.

He didn’t want this level of want. It was too much. It was too _large_ for him, and Tony had thought he could handle it but he couldn’t, because lately when Loki touched him Tony is almost unable to come back to himself, the beating heart that laid beneath the cold, heavy weight of his arc reactor feeling tight and foreign - more foreign than the metal in his chest, and wasn’t that laughable?

Loki moved above him, shifted and handled and folded him and claimed his flesh and Tony allowed it _all_ , he took it all into himself, yet a part of him doesn’t want to, this part of him that's starting to think it’s all too much, and Loki is muscles moving under skin, fragile and tender and powerful as he takes Tony to the edge; cold breath and frantic pulse and desperation.

And Tony squeezed his eyes shut and arched obediently into release, refusing all thought and refuting all emotions.

And after that his hands stroked Loki’s fine hair on his chest.  

‘How do you plan on getting it anyways, this apple that’s such a crown of Asgard’s treasures?’

The god finally raised his head to regard his lover, eyes glittering with insidious intention.

‘Why Stark, I mean to _steal_ it, of course.’

*

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Xmas my darlings! I ended up in a random trip to Adelaide, so I'm posting from somewhere really hot! 
> 
> I hope everyone has a blast, and see you for the next chapter shortly before the year ends.


	12. Anything you lose comes round in another form

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_Anything you lose comes round in another form - RUMI_

 

12

‘So,’ Tony said brightly, hands clasped before him. ‘First Christmas together. If we can survive this, we can survive anything. ’

Loki barely glanced at him, taking his time to smooth over the sleeves of the white dress shirt Tony had placed on his side of the bed earlier in the day. ‘This festival must mean more than you admit, to make you so nervous about it.’

He had a silk green scarf draped over one shoulder with studied inconsequence. Tony studied it with interest, his mind already thinking of the many creative ways it could be employed at the end of the night.

Maybe he’d get to tie up his own presents this year. Heh.

‘Whatever that look on your face is, the answer is no,’ Loki called out from the dresser where he shouldn’t have been able to catch Tony’s many admiring glances.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about as usual,’ Tony sidled away, fingers adjusting his own tie. The less said the less he would give away – but Tony was thrilling like an adolescent. The velveteen tuxedo he’d ordered forhis lover on a wild shopping impulse had turned out to be one of his better ideas – a fabric classic enough to bring out the side of Loki that was out of time; contemporized by the most elegant, streamlined tailoring money could buy.

Oh, but New York would be  _staring_  at them tonight.

Loki finally turned around, and the expression on his face was amused. ‘Much pains have you taken for this one night, for one who claims to be indifferent to it.’

‘Never let it be said I’m ever indifferent to you,’ the human all but purred as his hands smoothed down one velveteen lapel, its shade a green so dark as to be easily pass as black.

For once Loki didn’t bother to hide the pleasure that Tony’s statement brought him, for his smile curved lazy and genuine from the corners of his mouth. ‘Oh but I am so glad to pass your-  _mustard_ _,_ I believe is the colloquial?’  

‘What can I say babe, we are awesome pair,’ Tony sang as he ushered them out of the apartment and into the elevator. ‘You look edible in that suit and my Armani is smoking tonight, I out-007 every double-oh on the planet.’

Beside him Loki sparkled with his usual bran of calm mirth. ‘Oh? And who I wonder, would I be?’

‘Why, need you ask?’ Tony paused dramatically as he waved Happy aside and instead held open the door for his lover. ‘You’re my doe-eyed, long-legged trophy wife of course.’

‘Tell me Stark, IS death by Christmas carol  _truly_  the way you wish to be remembered? And you have not informed me of the night’s schedule.’

‘What’s there to inform? I promise you’ll love it.’

‘Because you do know what happens when I fail to be entertained.’ Loki insinuated.

‘Oooh threats on Christmas eve. You should really chill, darling. Let down some of that fabulous hair.’

‘Well then, I place myself in your protection, my champion,’ Loki smiled, and proceeded to ignore him for the next twenty minutes of traffic before finally biting out, ‘If you had told me the location, I could have teleported us there in mere seconds.’

‘Because you hate secrets, babe, I’ll let you in on something. Just this once.’

‘What?’

Tony waved a hand at the window. ‘This here would be Gridlock, god of New York rush hour traffic, and he’s clearly jealous that another god has Tony Stark all wrapped around his finger.’

‘You are a most inane and perplexing mortal, Stark.  _Where_  are we going?’

‘What Rudoph, all the reindeers used to call you names so you killed them? Chill out.’ Tony snipped before fishing out a pair of tickets from his coat jacket and flourishing them at his lover, who’d always had a fascination for Opera which he hadn't been prepared to admit. To enjoy human food was one thing; to appreciate their  _art_ , well, that was more revealing than Loki would ever be ready for.

‘Admittedly, I’d have loved to take you to Faust except theatre directors tend to get sentimental at Christmas… so you get Don Giovanni instead. There’s still a nice little scene at the end though, with enough fires and brimstones to satisfy any bloodthirsty god. I promise you’ll love it.’

Loki’s lips parted in surprise and pleasure. ‘You mentioned misliking such forms of entertainment before.’

‘They bore me, but that’s ok this time because I bought the antidote along,’ Tony said and pressed his lips to Loki’s knuckles, then along the open spaces on his wrist.

‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ his lover breathed, eyes almost fluttering shut as Tony moved his attentions lower.

‘ _Hmm._  I wonder,’ Tony mused as his fingers trailed suggestively along the velveteen cloth blow Loki’s belt, ‘What precisely the nature of flattery that might buy my fellow New Yorker's a night of relative safety from the god of mischief? Perhaps  _this_  sort?’

‘Perhaps,’ the god’s words were coy, smoky with anticipation. ‘I find myself surprisingly receptive tonight to being... petitioned.’

Then he hissed with pleasure and arched his spine in surprise when Tony’s teeth found the buckles of his belt.

*

Don Giovanni turned out to be predictably long winded and fatuous, not that Tony had any right to complain as it also kept his hard-to-please, sometimes homicidal lover docile and fixated like a serpent before a flute.

Tony kept himself entertained by sniggering to himself about how fast they’d evacuate the Opera House if Loki ever relinquish his disguise and how receptive SHIELD would be to piping opera music into the streets the next time they had to face Loki as an enemy.

He was also absolutely disgusted to discover that Loki could understand Italian, even when sung from a pitch so high as to rattle glass.

‘And to think you never questioned why the gods ‘spoke’ flawless English, in all your hubris,’ Loki had said dryly, and turned back to his opera, leaving Tony to wonder just how much he still didn’t know about the secret powers of Asgardian gods.

Whilst Loki had enjoyed the opera per say, he hadn’t enjoyed being surrounded by fellow opera buffs in the crush for the exit after the show, and Tony’s heart sped up a few time when Loki’s expression started inching out of ‘careful indifference’ and crawling towards ‘kill and destroy’ when a particularly irritating woman started speaking loudly to her companion.

‘I’ll find us an alternate exit. Don’t go anywhere.’

He could here Loki’s teeth grinding together as he was shoved and jostled around. ‘Indeed I seem to be going nowhere, which wouldn’t be the case if one could just teleport out of this swaddled mass.’

Tony pulled away from barking directions at Happy through his phone. ‘No can do, Dancer. You’ve promised to behave, and I’m finding us an out as we speak. Now, would you rather dispute, or would you rather have sushi?’

World domination held at bay by tiny silvers of raw fish. There  _had_  to be a universal joke in there somewhere.

‘You have five minutes, Stark.'

‘Coming, coming.’

‘My sushi  _waits.’_  growled Loki.

‘Jesus Loki, you are such a  _cat._ ’

*

And then was Tony’s turn again to ask a question, and he could barely refrain from gleefully rubbing his hands.

‘What superpower would you wish to have, if you could have anything you liked?’

The god rolled his eyes, abandoning all subtlety. ‘And here I thought we had agreed to refrain from childish questions.’

‘Hey, this is a very important interstellar fact-finding thing we have going on,’ the human defended. ‘I could have found out a lot sooner that Asgardians came with a built-in Babblefish. It could have explained Tokyo a lot better, do you know many sleepless nights I lost over that?’

‘Loki snorted. ‘Superpowers in your human terms then. Very well. I suppose unlike Thor, I do not know how to fly,’ Loki said brusquely, and Tony thought he detected a note of jealousy.

‘Your magic?’

‘Teleportation is not the same as flying. More convenient, but rather less… exhilarating.’

Tony filed away the fact that Loki’s seemingly endless array of tricks did not necessarily conform to desire alone. Perhaps each trick was a spell that had to be learnt, but as such wouldn’t flying have been as easily attained as teleportation, if it was a talent Loki desired for himself?

Before he could ask, Loki came back at him with a new question.

‘Why did you not marry your lady Pepper, ere you had the chance?’

Tony swallowed the lump in his throat and stared back at Loki. Well. He did start the game between them – one question each, no jokes, no vacillation.

The god’s face was patient and impassive as Tony discarded answer after answer as trite, cowardly, or not goddamn honest enough.

‘I guess I wasn’t ready,’ he finally admitted in a low voice. ‘More so I don’t think I’ll ever be. I’m selfish that way.’

Loki nodded and looked away, satisfied. ‘I am ready to end this game, if you are.’

Tony could barely hide his relief. ‘Of course. I have something for you, by the way.’

From under their table he fished out a well-prepared gift, which he pushed over to Loki with a flourish.

The god of mischief frowned at him. ‘You said there would be no gifts.’

‘So I lied. Oblige me this one time?’ The human gestured encouragingly at his lover’s hesitation. ‘Please.’

‘Stark, I have-‘ but instead of pleasure the god seemed troubled. ‘I’d forgotten how feels to accept a gift with no-‘

And then he trailed off, the moment painful in its awkwardness, and Tony’s heart caught in his throat as he watched slender fingers smoothed over his gift, his lover’s strained face seemingly to be at loss for words. His heart begins to hammer; had he known how deprived Loki had been of even such trite shows of affection, he’d have put much more thought into his choices instead of settling on the first thing that came to mind-

With a click the lip sprang open to reveal a set of fish-slicing knives gleaming within its velvet setting.

‘Oh,  _Stark,’_ the god’s voice was wrecked.  _‘Stark.’_

Tony was floored. It was meant to be a joke, really. Something to laugh about, perchance to tease out the contents of the mysterious gift Loki received from a famed Japanese chef on their first trip to Tokyo.

But Loki never seemed to know how to joke for all he held dominion over it, and so the moment was heavy, replete with symbolism and commitments that Tony feared he didn’t mean, might  _never_  mean.

Looking at the god sitting before him, beautiful and starved and somehow frighteningly breakable, Tony was confronted with a terrifying quandary.

It was one thing to break Pepper’s heart. Would he dare break the heart of a god?

‘Flowcut, fillet, that’s a stitchknive, this one’s for bone, and one’s for skinning.’ Tony paused and cleared his throat. ‘Please tell me you’re never going to use these on anything human.’

‘An oath upon my heart, dear mortal.’

‘Or alive.’

‘Don’t be greedy, Stark,’ Loki smiled down at him then, secrets upon secrets in the laughing light of his eyes, and Tony was charmed out of his skull again.

Instantly he shot out of his chair and grabbed his lover’s wrist. ‘Come on, dance with me.’

Startled into a breathless laugh, Loki rose and grinned at him. ‘Who shall lead? I swear I shall not relinquish myself so easily.’

The god proceeded to frowned as Tony lead to the bannister ledge. ‘Stark, whatever are you thinking to do?’

‘Deciding who leads,’ the mortal announced with a perfectly straight face before pushing his lover-god off the ledge and jumping after him.

The Mark IIV formed seamlessly around him as he swooped after Loki and caught him nine floors later.

_‘You miserable little-’_  the god of mischief begun, and then abruptly threw his head back and laughed with a freedom and fondness that thrilled Tony’s heart. ‘How long have you been waiting to do that?’

‘Long enough,’ Tony grinned behind the mask. ‘Now somebody once told me if he could have one superpower, it would be flying.’

‘As opposed you know, to being flown around.’

‘Semantics etc, lets not split hairs. You up for a little late night Louis and Clark?’

‘I’m not updated to the reference, but tonight I find myself up for _oh_ , anything your mortal brain can divine, Stark,’ Loki murmured as his arms wrapped around Tony’s shoulders, and boy did his voice send shivers down his spine with its intimacy.

‘Keep that up and this is going to be a very short flight.’

*

‘Stark.’

‘Hmmm? Yes dear.’

Tony looked up to see Loki idly twirling a lock of hair, staring at the ceiling. Midnight had come and gone, and they'd wished each other a genuine, if slightly cautious merry Christmas, although Tony had boogled at the notion of a deity as scornful as his lover willingly partaking in so mortal a festival. But still, the night had been a success, and seeing Loki draped on his bed tonight as if he belonged there, left Tony mellowed out and satisfied in a way that he hadn't imagined possible.

‘I have heard it possible for one to received more than one present on such a day.’

Tony stilled, one foot stuck in his pyjama pant. ‘Gee pumpkin, if there was something else you wanted I wished you told me whilst we were still shopping because I’m not sure if even Tony Stark can get the malls to open 4am on Christmas morni-‘

‘This gift,’ Loki licked his lips and finally met his eyes. ‘It’s not for me.’

‘If by that you expect Ironman to break into Neiman Marcus because you forgot to get a present for  _somebody else,_ the answer is not on your dammed lim _fffff-’_

‘Did I ever tell you-’ the god asked conversationally as he suddenly teleported before him, and Tony muffled under the hand Loki covered his mouth with.

_‘Mfff-_ ’

‘That it is within my power to change genders at will?’

Tony abruptly ceased his struggles. ‘Thor’s never brought that up.’

‘Thor is not a  _sorcerer_ ,’ Loki breaths, and the way he says the word is as if its definition included every sexual perversion Tony can imagine – and then some.

‘But  _you_  are.’

‘But I am,’ Loki says, all toxic honey as he arches out for Tony, and their kiss is one of the hottest things they’ve ever shared, which was really saying something. With a groan he pushes back, and the flesh he encounters is molded and softer, curved over the palm of his hands like warm sable.

And Tony relinquishes plumper, softer lips to take in a pair of quartz-green eyes framed with sooty lashes upon a heart-stoppingly beautiful face, black hair tumbling over pale shoulders, pert breast, and a washboard stomach. He might have been a little short of breath then.

_‘Jesus_  H Christ.’

‘Had nothing to do with it,’ the lady Loki smiled, sinuous and falsely benign with the slightest trace of venom as she turns around and beckons him into bed. ‘Be warned. Your trophy wife turns back into a pumpkin at dawn.’

‘Well well well. Merry Christmas to me then,’ Tony simply shook his head at the life he now lead - domesticated, treacherous, _magical._

And then he shrugged and followed her to bed.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the readers who chased me for new chapters. I miss everyone and the fandom too! 80% of the remaining chapters are already written, but its always the last bit that just stubbornly refuses to come out.
> 
> With luck, I hope to post the remaining 5 chapters week by week. 
> 
> <3!
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


	13. The lion is most handsome when looking for food

 

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_The lion is most handsome when looking for food – RUMI_

 

13

Tony blinked awake, gripped momentarily by a familiar panic of danger – an unaccounted for presence.

Then he collected himself with a sigh, shifted grouchily and surprise surprise, there was Loki watching him beneath half-lidded eyes with that creepy neutral-but-not-quite expression.

‘Gnhh?’

‘Good morning, Stark.’

‘Doesn’t that ever get old for you? Watching me sleep?’ Tony rolled onto his back, the better to avoid that secretive gaze. Too much was going on in _that_ vicinity of the bed for him to deal with before his second cup of coffee.

‘I have watched the birth of stars, Stark. I have steered your civilization towards the discovery of fire. Our very definition of what is captivating is bound to be at odds.’ The god was sprawled on his side as usual, one arm propping up his head like a sleeping Buddha, if one was capable of imagining a slightly malicious one. With a few loose screws.

‘Right. Coffee it is then,’ Tony sat up blearily, and immediately got yanked back down again by a firm arm on his shoulder. ‘Oww!'

‘Stay. I wish to enjoy you like this for a few moments longer.’

‘You know I’m not conversant in the morning, babe.’

‘Then do not speak,’ Loki shrugged. ‘It matters not to me, as long as you remain till I am done.’

The mortal found himself pinned under a very heavy, very immovable thigh, and gave up, grumbling. ‘Fine, Jesus. Can’t you switch? At least the female body doesn't cut off all my circulation.’

‘You’re always.. uncomfortable with my presence in the mornings, Stark. Tell me why.’

‘Coffee-’

‘Later.’

Tony stared belligerently at the ceiling and pursed his lips.

_‘Stark.’_

Tony didn’t speak for a while. Then: ‘We all have our comfort zones, right? Mine is – I generally prefer to wake up alone. It’s almost… in-built. I _do_ want you here, you know that,’ he hastened to add.

The god inclined his head, and waited.

‘Sharing a life with you hasn’t been a trial for me, Loki. I _like_ what we have. I just-‘ he searched for the words. ‘Sometimes I wake up and I forget I have someone. Like temporary amnesia. It used to hurt people.’ _It used to hurt Pepper._

Tony paused, but still Loki didn’t speak. ‘Are you letting me talk myself into a hole? Because that’s a nasty, and nasty don’t earn you blow jobs.’

After an indeterminate moment, he finally felt a minuscule shift in the crushing weight on his hip.

‘I am not unfamiliar with the desire for self-defense, Anthony. The protections we throw up in our unconscious states are often the strongest, as such. I judge you not.’

‘Yeah? Well I’m not getting off my high horse, because I’m not the one who shoves and kicks in bed.’

‘Only when you deserve it,’ Loki said with a wave as if he was endowing Tony with some great service. Then the god’s gaze became sobered. ‘Do not worry, Stark, for in the course of time these problems shall be mere trifles. And once you partake of the apple of Iðunn and I heal your heart, we shall have all the time in the world.’

Tony swallowed. _Oh yeah, that._

‘So about those apples-‘

Loki’s tone suddenly took on a shaper, more solid edge. ‘I _want_ you Stark. And I shall have you.’

_Holly fuck_. ‘Yeah but-’

‘You do want me to remove the shards do you not?’ the god purred, and suddenly his lips was so close to the arc reactor that he looked about to lick it. ‘But the moon wanes and you needs deliver an answer soon.’

By force of habit Tony forced his elevated breathing to still; he was pretty sure if Loki hadn’t yanked his reactor out and crushed it after almost a year of living together he could be trusted not to kill him – even if he couldn’t be trusted to have Tony’s best interest at heart.

The human licked his lips. ‘Tell me something. We all know why it’s important to me, but why is it so important to you?’

‘Ah, Stark. Needs you ask?’ There was a wry humour on the God’s face. ‘It wasn’t exactly easy, getting your attention. Now that I have it, I intend to keep it.’

_Forever?_

Even as a part of him started gibbering in fear Tony could feel his face suffusing with pleasure at the admission. He’d always suspect that Loki had played him from the day he’d first appeared at Calavatra Tower, but to hear a ready admission – it unlocked something warm and thick within him, as if a blocked channel could finally flow free, a channel Tony hadn’t even been aware of, until he felt it. A channel that felt ready to accept.. something. Invite it to stay. 

In a corner of his mind, he could feel the presence of many faceless ghosts of his past failures receding – not disappearing, but waned. Less present.

He was fucking Tony Stark, and he had captured the undivided attentions of a _god._

That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about golden apples however, so Tony decided to dissemble. ‘We should go flying again sometimes. I think it proved to be one of our better ideas.’

Loki kissed him hard. ‘Vicious human. So eager to drop me off another ledge, are we?’

‘Hey play fair. At least there wasn’t an inconveniently placed pane of _glass_ in the way,’ Tony grinned. ‘Besides, you wanted something more exhilarating than teleporting.’

‘Oh, I think you’ll find me capable of introducing several engaging ways to be thus... exhilarated,’ Loki said lightly. And then he proceeded to demonstrate the art of how to properly wake someone up without coffee, by stuffing the corner of a pillow into Tony’s mouth and then proceeding to suck him off until he screamed.

*

This apples thing was going to be the death of him.

Perched on bar stools high above the city, Tony swirled his olive martini and pondered his life.

He’d brought Loki here to the rooftop bar at the Empire Hotel once, very early in their… burgeoning acquaintance. It had come to be a significant place in his mind. Once it had been Tony’s favorite intimate drinking spot, before becoming momentously elevated as the place Tony had offered a then still unknown god of mischief a deal. Don’t kill anyone. Play nice. Find something you like.

And Loki had-

Loki had found something he liked. Except that Tony would never in a million years have guessed that something would be _him_.

And Loki had played nice. Not necessarily _fair,_ but nice.

Loki hadn’t killed anyone. Although Tony still has nightmares about the Dane.

And now, Tony... Tony was _stuck._

He'd anticipated _a lot_ of situations; some of them them improbable, most of them which involved going to hell on a handcart,  but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that his _biggest_ problem with Loki was going to be immortality. Handed to him on a plate.

The worst thing was, he couldn’t talk anybody about it. Couldn’t pick up the phone and call Pepper. Couldn’t cajole Bruce into playing battleship with him whilst he ran his ideas through a sounding board. Couldn’t even call a fucking hotline, because hello, my boyfriend is an immortal deity with no conscience and I really have no clue what egg-head plot he’s hatching. And Tony would bet his Swiss bank accounts, all three of them, that there’s definitely an egg somewhere- on that was probably going to stink to to the high heavens once it hatched.

Some days he felt like he’d asked Loki to pin the tail on the donkey, and then he’d turned and looked at his ass and… _yeaaah._

Because Tony _knew_ , the right thing to do would be to say jeez thanks, but no thanks. Immortality was not an offer to be fucked with. And neither was accepting so great a boon from a trickster god with a track record like Loki’s.

Except that by refusing Tony would also irreversibly piss his lover off, the one he was currently having a surprisingly stable relationship and incidentally the best sex with. And he’d have to say goodbye to any chances of having the shrapnel taken out, thus saving his own skin in the long run. Who's to say how long the arc reactor would keep them out? 

_And,_  Loki might decide he's no longer of use and inconveniently end his life in the process. For retribution. For wasting his time. For sheer shit and giggles.

_‘Say no,_ ’ Loki had snarled the first time he’d propositioned Tony on the roof, _‘and it may be the_ _last_ _thing you say.’_

One could see why there was a bit of a conflict of interest here. Threats like that was not something Tony was in a hurry to relive.

Tony ordered another olive martini. The wind sang to him, offering solace and a respite from his self-imposed solitude, but otherwise gave him no answers.

If he squinted his eyes, Tony could almost see the ghost of his memories from that fateful night on the roof. He'd remember watermelons ice cream and olive cocktails. He’d see a darker, slighter man who couldn't sit still and his elegant, blond-haired companion with the weirdly memorable pinstripe tie. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, as they traded witticisms and self-amused glances, leaning towards each other with their backs against the world.

A part of him wonders exactly how much he’d missed that night. How many cues. Tony had been so sure of himself then.

A year with the Avengers can change a man.

A year with a god-

What would eternity look like?

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


	14. Most people guard against going into the fire

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_Most people guard against going into the fire, and so end up in it - RUMI_

 

14

Tony had always been a guy who liked to know a convenient exit existed somewhere. This applied to everything, but it applied _especially_ to relationships.

The problem with being with someone like Loki is that nothing is convenient, and the probability of an exit that isn’t marked ‘irretrievably dead’ is unlikely. Knowing the god, had such a door exist, it would probably be invisible

Add to the fact that he didn’t always know (or was simple too cowardly to decide) what he truly felt for the god, and that Loki isn’t somebody he could just leave hanging or walk away from as he used to whenever thing got boring or complicated (and boy, did that suddenly seem like a _really_ long time ago) Tony found himself at his wits ends, running out of time, and racked with a guilt he resented.

All this _complication_ and you know what, he wasn’t even fucking gay in the first place. Tony wanted out of these hard decisions – these tangled knots of simultaneously wanting and repealing. He wanted the vacillations to _end._  

But the pendulum of his heart swings. And swings.

*

Ironman eventually adjusted his speed, slowing down as they darted over buildings with a magically weightless Loki keeping a deceptively light grip upon his shoulders.

It had been without a doubt, an _exhilarating_ night.

Initially, he’d intended to just fly Loki around the cityscapes the same way they had on Christmas eve, but the god was having none of it.

‘I’m not fragile, Stark. Take some _risk.’_

_Here be the perks of dating a god._

Oh, you’ve got it, Jingles.’

And then he’d done the Ironman equivalent of gunning down and speeding up so abruptly as to surprise a laugh out of Loki.

Eager to show off, Tony pushed the suit as far as it would go, shooting through clouds once he deciphered that the lack of oxygen and rapid changes in temperature wouldn't bother Loki. They made wild, swooping spirals, free falls, sudden nose dives throughout the city. 

At one point Tony even tried to shake the god off his back, spiraling in corkscrews and dipping himself into the river – to no avail. They cackled together in a cacophony of maniac laughter as Tony steered from feint to feint, and bloody hell, Loki was as tenacious as a wasp. Nothing shook him off.

It was glorious. He’d never been able to _share_ his experience of being Ironman with anyone before. Aside from Rhodey, he never thought he’d ever be able to get anyone to understand how it felt.

Finally Tony alighted on the roof of Calatrava with Loki, breathing hard and still chuckling.  ‘Thank you for flying Air Stark, we hope you’ve enjoyed your experience.’

‘Barely adequate, with a dismal lack of refreshments,’ Loki sniffed, although his eyes gleamed with approval when Tony reached around a bag he’d planted on the roof earlier and fished out two glasses and a bottle of champagne.

‘You’re a spoilt alien prince. We’re a no frills carrier.’

Loki hid a smile as he accepted his drink. ‘It’s certainly a way of riding you I never anticipated.’

He looked away politely as Tony spat out his first mouthful of champagne.

‘Truly a beautiful night,’ Loki breathed before turning to smile at him, and Tony’s heart plummeted in dismay. He had been too busy pushing the suit through stunts to notice earlier, but Loki was right.  

It’s as if the stars are mocking him for the farce. They’re out in force tonight, filling the velvet night with pinpricks of brilliance despite the jealous smoother of city lights.

‘We shall always have this night, you and I.’

For a while Tony thought he couldn’t go through with it. God, but he feared losing Loki, he hadn't realised how much till now.

Then he finally took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry Loki, but I can’t accept.’ He didn't have to say what, the look on Loki's face clearly showed he knew what Tony referred to.

For a long moment the god of mischief didn’t speak. Could have been frozen to the roof, dark hair whipping over a lean, relentless face. His eyes were flecks of ice; they went through Tony like the sharpest of blades.

When he finally licked his lips to speak, it was to throw Tony’s old question back at him. ‘You can’t? Or you _won’t?’_

_Please. Please don’t call my bluff._

Face burning despite the cold, Tony screwed his courage to the sticking place. ‘Won’t. The risk-‘

‘When have you ever been afraid of mere _risks?_ ’ Loki jeered. ‘Nothing in our history or your evolution suggests you’ve ever taken the mundane into account.’

‘Does it matter?’ Tony looked up at his lover with the full gaze of his intentions. He owned Loki that much honesty at least. ‘The answer’s still no.’

'I see.' Loki arched an eyebrow as he read Tony’s face, which was apparently fucking transparent when you had a couple of thousand years’ experience in screwing people over. ‘You expected me to be furious. Perhaps to visit violence upon your person-‘

The mortal swallowed, unsure what to expect now that Loki clearly wasn’t about to summon his spear and run it through him.

‘I’m hoping-‘

Loki cut him off. ‘Is that not why you contrived to tell me on this roof on the guise of sharing such a… starry-eyed sojourn? So that you may have an excuse to wear your suit?’

Tony knew better than to lie to the god of lies, so he just kept quiet.

‘But I do not like to conform to expectations, as you know. In fact,’ his lover's voice had a wicked sweetness that Tony didn’t trust; ‘-if there is any sort of violence between us, my dearest, I should like it to be _wholly consensual.’_

Tony could feel the words trailing invisible fingers along his neck and clenched his shoulders to prevent from shuddering.

The god tsked. ‘I have said before, Stark, you are not one I wish to engage in enmity with. Not whilst we have such other profitable things to engage in, wouldn’t you agree?

Then he wrapped his cold hands around his neck and tilted him forward into what Tony could only describe as a soul sucking kiss. He was freezing, even in his suit, by the time he stumbled back, blinking wildly against the wind and his almost unrecognisable, eerily calm lover. 

Loki watched him with a closeness that prickled his skin, missing nothing.

‘I wasn’t sure how you’d deal with the news.’

The thin lips twisted with a barely discernible bitterness. ‘I have thousands of years practice in having my heart’s desires denied to me, Stark. I can _deal_ , as you mortals like to say.’

That one statement hurt him more than if Loki had been pissed. ‘Hey listen-’

‘I’m touched, but worry not for me,’ Loki’s face was suddenly close enough to feel the cold gust of his breathing. ‘This is not about me, it is about my sweet-’ he begun peppering Tony’s face with kisses, ‘-mortal,’ more kisses ‘-lover.’

Tony blinked again, completely losing the plot as Loki overwhelmed him with his proximity; by the small kisses and the gentle locking of their hips, the sinuous reach of his hands.

‘It was never about the extended years, my pet. That was but a by-product of the apple. A sweet prize I’d admit, but one I’m sure we can renegotiate. When the time comes.’

‘Loki, I can’t renegotiate. I don’t want to live forever, not even with you.’

For a brief second the mask dropped from Loki and he thought he saw pure, toxic fury; an anger as old and destructive as Vesuvius. He felt the god’s hand on his arc reactor and looked down to see it completely enveloping the light. It was terrifying to see the the space between his chest turn into darkness, swallowed up by Loki’s palm. Loki’s will.

God help him, but there was something in that imagery that truly scared Tony. Scared him in a way he’d never been scared before, not even when he was in a dank cell, held captive by the Ten Rings and he'd thought he'll never feel the sun on his face again.

‘It is heavy on you,’ Loki mummers as they both looked at the covered space on his chest. ‘Your body cannot carry such weight for long. As it is your heart strains with each beat, endures a marathon without a finish line.’

‘Loki, stop.’ He didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t bear the temptation.

‘You are my lover, is it so hard to believe that I simply do not want you to die before your time? A heart failure-’

Tony shrugs his lover’s hand away, attempting chasing away the strange panic that’s beginning to stutter his breath. Loki’s words were frequently poison and antidote both. Stick and carrot.  He folds his arms are across his chest, keeping the arc reactor away.

The god instantly looked contrite. ‘Hush, you are trembling, and it is not from the cold. We will not speak of Iðunn’s apples any longer.’

‘Ever.’

‘Oh Tony, Tony,’ the god murmured, cold hands pulling his unwilling body closer, ‘-my Tony. You will be safe with me, I swear it. I swear upon Yggdrasil herself.’ Loki’s lips traced a path from neck to lips, before forcing Tony’s mouth to open to him. He was a relentless god, Tony always knew, but this was the first time he felt crowded in with no escape - the god’s hands firm upon his body, squeezing out every inch of space between them.

‘I want to go home.’

‘Soon.’

Loki’s hands played with him, and even in the cold, Tony found himself aroused. To be with Loki was to be constantly overloaded, constantly faced with opposites – the thrust of his cold mouth giving rise to the thrust of his hot cock, the soft solicitations of his words giving rise to the hard brutality of his actions. There was none of last night’s tenderness in his face, but still Tony groaned as strategic pieces of his armour were stripped and discarded around them like worthless things. Regardless of his own desires Tony soon found himself bracing both arms against the bannister of the roof as Loki pulled one arm across his chest to pull him close whilst his other hand aligned their hips together and his teeth grazed Tony’s neck lightly, then sank into a proper bite as he fucked into the unhuman unprepared.

‘Loki, Loki- my _god!’_ The pleasure-pain knocked every complex emotion out of Tony’s head, and he surrendered if not gratefully, then with relief.

‘Look at the stars, Anthony. They will never change their course for anyone, and neither will I,’ the god whispers into the shell of his ear as each thrusts wrung a deep groan from the human. ‘Yes, my dear. Yes. I _am_ your god, and though you don’t mean it now, you _will_ mean it eventually.’

His pace brokered no allowance for control or active participation. With every thrust Tony’s brain was being emptied of thought and his body was being filled with cock, and that was all he had space for as Loki held him tight and fucked him and crooned into his ear, until he came with a shout.

He continued to hold on to Tony as he shuddered through his release. ‘You are beautiful, Stark. I will not let you go.’

‘Guhhh,’ was all Tony could think to say, slack with relief and strangely light headed. He nodded gratefully as Loki cleaned him up with a spell. ‘What about you?’

Green eyes gleamed with amusement and something slightly insidious whose slithering intent Tony could not discern. ‘Do not worry, Stark, I have taken my satisfaction, though it was not quite as… explosive as yours.’

‘Meh,’ Tony said dismissively.

‘My body is made differently. It does not mind waiting.’ Loki’s arm curled comfortable and possessive around his waist. Tony was happy to play along; it was far better than arguing.

‘Let us enjoy the view awhile longer. I can read to you, if you like.’

Tony feared this amicability. Loki was given to tantrums and dissatisfaction; it was not like him to just leave things be. ‘You have no book.’

‘I carry them in here,’ Loki tapped his temples. ‘My memory is well-nigh perfect. What would you hear?’

‘Not Shakespeare, no religious texts, I doubt you memorised any car-repair handbook; how about -’ Tony blinked. _‘Faust.’_

‘You think me Mephistopheles?’ Loki arched an eyebrow. ‘Nevermind, don’t answer that.’

‘Also Mister Mistophelees,’ Tony said yawning. ‘Magical cat from T.S Elliot. Catchy song, remind me to play it for you sometime.’

His lover rolled his eyes, and then settled beside Tony as he recited softly from memory.

_‘If e’er I lie content upon a lounge of pleasure, then let there be an end to me!_

_When thou with flattery can cajole me, till I self-satisfied shall be,_

_When thou with pleasure canst befool me, be that the last of days for me!’_

Tony stiffened. ‘Loki-‘

_‘Stay,’_ the fallen prince continued, even as he pulled Tony back to him with fingers as hard as iron bars.  _‘Thou art so fair. Then may you lead me down in fetters, onto the blackest of despairs.’_

Tony wrenched his fingers away. _‘No.’_

_‘Then may the the death-bell toll, recalling, that from my service, thou art free;_

_The clock may stop, the pointer falling, for Time itself has passed for me.’_

‘Enough, Loki!’ the mortal snarled. ‘Enough reading. Enough _games.’_

‘Very well,’ Loki said almost gallantly as Tony turned away. ‘Despite the circumstances, I have enjoyed our little midnight turn about the city blocks. You must allow me to return the favour soon. Perhaps next week.’

‘And where would you spirit me off to?’ Tony asked carefully. He was a little thrown by his lover’s behavior, suspicion warring with relief for space in his chest. Trust Loki to make the circumstances of his best behavior more draining than his bad. Deliberate bastard.

‘I’ll think about it,’ the god said mysteriously. ‘A number of places come to mind, but I am rather reminded of a certain Central Park rendezvous-‘

‘And the resulting ear-splitting lecture I received from Fury,’ the mortal growled.

‘You refer to the statue? Nothing you didn’t ask for rather specifically, if memory serves. Is it not a fitting tribute?‘

Tony couldn’t refute that. It had been pretty bad ass. More than that, he’d truly enjoyed the bubble of privacy the afternoon had provided outdoors. ‘Hell yeah. Bring on the icecapades.’

Loki nodded with satisfaction. ‘You like snow-capped playgrounds. I shall take you to a much bigger one.’

‘Where?’

The secret curve of this lover's smile was like the sharpest of blades.

_'Jötunnheimr.’_

*

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit: Loki's quotes are from Faust (1806), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a theme that will be repeated throughout the Flawed Design universe. 
> 
> Only 2 more chapters left!! <3 Leave a cookie if you love me ^ ^
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


	15. I've lost all my strength

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

  

_I've lost all my strength, but from your power I am able - RUMI_

 

15

Exactly on New Year’s day Loki spirited them onto the lands of the Jotun to keep his promise, and Tony was once more rendered speechless by the god’s docile, almost unbecoming compliance of late to Tony’s wiles. He spent the brief travel time - most of which involved being encased in a glowing vacuum with oxygen levels alternating between too much and non-existent - tellingly locked in the grip of Loki’s possessive, gauntleted arms and alternating between nausea, wariness, and mind-numbing terror.  

When the bars of Loki’s arms drew away from his chest a few moments after their feet touched solid ground, he swayed on his heels, almost tipping over and it’s all Tony can do not to grab the god close to him again in a display of pathetic mortal terror.

‘You can open your eyes now.’

Tony swallowed his dread and blinked. The first thing that hit him was the cold. And then the brightness of the day. Then the sheer vastness of the ice before him choked him up, and an involuntary wheeze made its way past his throat. It was a sound of surprise - perhaps awe, but Loki’s reaction to it was to instantly erect a shield around them both.

‘You are too fragile, Stark,’ the god chided. ‘Perhaps we should return.’

‘Are you crazy? I just rearranged my guts for this, I wanna to look around.’

Loki’s mouth was quirked with forbearance. ‘Be it on your head then.’

‘That said, you could have given me some warning we were coming to deep freeze 9,’ the human retorted once his tongue was capable of speech again. ‘How does anything survive a place like this?’

‘With great difficulty,’ the god pointed at a barely noticeable pathway slopping down amidst some jagged cliff edge. ‘We walk down from there.’

They picked their way down the hill, sheathed in Loki’s temperature-regulating bubble. The god had insisted on the Mark XI, his sturdiest suit, which is heavy and ungainly to walk in and they had argued about it prior to the trip before Tony had come to his senses and realised it would be easier to give in. Which was just as well because Jötunnheimr turned out to be beautiful and unforgiving – and also much, much colder than earth’s artic temperatures. Within the first half hour of walking Tony found his teeth chattering even with the additional insulation Loki had insisted on.

But he wasn’t about to complain. He’s been afforded the opportunity to appreciate the fact that his first interstellar trip to a different planet had arose from an afternoon of shenanigans and playground games. Hence, here be Tony Stark, first human being to walk on the surface of a new galaxy, and he had his 50 dollar homemade snowgun to thank for it.

Hah. If Fury knew he was standing on the precipice of worlds; he’d have a fucking heart attack. He told Jarvis to take some photos. Let those smug Caltech bastards back at SHIELD’s labs analyse these pretty atmospheric gasses to death and tear their hair trying to figure out where it came from.

They walked, seemingly in random directions, through a magnificent, eerily silent land that was swathed entirely in shades of blues and whites. The world of Jötunnheimr was immense, empty and beautiful. It was also unspeakably solitary, and as he watched Loki move beside him, neutral and withdrawn, Tony could see how well the god belonged.

Which was perhaps its own tragedy.

The human stared at the icescapes they moved past in awe. ‘Did you bring me here to show me your Jotun skin?

Green eyes narrowed into flints. ‘No.’

‘Just asking. In case, you know, you ever feel like you wanna share-‘

_‘No.’_

‘Wokay,’ Tony said quickly before things escalated. ‘That’s settled then, for now.’

‘For ever.’

‘For now.’

The walking continued. Vistas of unbroken ice opened up before them, and Tony rapidly grew bored.

Idly the human wondered next if Loki had taken anyone else to Jotun before.

‘Have you taken anyone else to Jotun before?’

Loki stopped suddenly, green eyes taking in his measure. ‘Do you care?’

 _What the hell do you think._ ‘Of course I don’t friggin care.’

They started walking again and Tony muttered, ‘Why the hell would I care? Ain’t exactly the crown jewels, this place.’

He was lying through his teeth of course. Jutenheim was _exactly_ the fucking crown jewels, more beautiful and terrifying than any image Loki had shown him of Asgard.

‘Nevertheless, it is the inheritance I never knew.’

‘Did you just increase the temperature again?’

‘Yes.’

Tony hummed his appreciation and squinted. ‘That’s one mother of a whirlwind headed this way.’

‘Yes.’

Tony frowned as he peered into the distance, skin prickling. ‘Are you deliberately walking us towards the storm instead of away from it?’

His lover paused. ‘Yes.’

He always got a little nervous when Loki got that way; half lazy, half intense, very lithe and dangerous. The hair at the back of his neck started to rise. ‘Uh. That doesn’t seem very conducive for survival.’

‘You’re right,’ Loki’s hand found the back of his neck in a deceptively gentle grip and Tony suddenly found himself moving faster, towards the ominous rumpling swirl of white. ‘But then you’re with _me_ , aren’t you?’

Tony swallowed but continued moving, letting Loki walk him straight _into_ the howling snow storm. ‘Actually, that part might be even less conducive to survival.’

‘Likely so,’ his lover drawled as he navigated them past howling clouds; hail that rained so hard against them that sparks of light shot off their shield. ‘Yet here we are regardless, god and mortal.’

‘Romantic,’ Tony croaked, and watched Loki’s mouth twisting south with an irony so heavy, he was certain it was beyond him.

‘Oh Stark, you have _no_ idea,’ the god murmured, as he finally pivoted them to a standstill. He felt Loki’s fingers working on the subtle latches on his helm.

‘Maybe I wanna know,’ Tony said self-conscious of the way he always turned into some unresisting damsel whenever Loki started stripping him down. ‘Wanna tell me why we’re here?’

‘Because,’ the god drawled, and Tony would have to be blind not to see the naked desire in his eyes; ‘I would make love to you in the eye of the storm, Stark.’

His brains short circuited with their situation - the unfairness of it all. There were certain words, Tony felt, someone like Loki shouldn’t be allowed to say. Certain expressions that should be denied a god of mischief as he lowers his head and catches Tony’s mouth with his own. Loki doesn’t kiss so much as drinks him like a bottle. A bottle he only puts down on _empty._

Tony finally broke away, turning his eyes back into the storm attempting to break through their barriers. It was a safer to look at such a natural occurring violence, for it was no match for the tempest he knew lied within Loki himself.

Everything about this relationship was turning out to be too much-

‘What are you doing?’ Tony squeaks when Loki abruptly moves his arms under Tony’s body and starts pulling him downwards onto his reclining form, long legs folding so smoothly below them that the human barely felt his intention until he found himself sliding without thinking atop his lover.

‘I wish to have you on my lap.’

‘What about what I want,’ Tony hears himself say, but it is a half-hearted one and they both know it. His body by now knew a responsiveness to the god’s touch that often acted before Tony himself was fully conscious. His heartbeat is suddenly a painful weight, pinned down by Loki’s gaze like some delicate insect , spread opened for inspection.

‘Stark,’ the god cajoles, and his voice is deceptively light and musical against the muted groaning of Jötunnheimr storming beyond them. ‘Give yourself to me. Please.’

Finally Tony gives up on his hesitation, his apprehensions, and his hands settle on Loki’s shoulders – permission. The god exhales, eyelashes fluttering. Moves. Vanishes the clothes on both their bodies. The perfection of his body was coldly inhuman and utterly glorious. Visually, Loki simply had no flaws to speak of.

It makes Tony afraid.

Loki manipulates his body as if Tony is a doll that weighs nothing, hooking his knees over the god’s longer legs and carrying the full weight of his human shell in his hands like he’s holding a rag doll. As if Tony weighs little more than a rather ungainly pillow. Red shame momentarily slashes his cheeks at how vulnerable and pliant he becomes, before the distraction of smooth fingers entering him takes over, a smooth scissoring movement that coated and prepared him. Tony tried not to shudder at the cold, both inside and out, and when Loki suddenly parts his legs with calculated deliberation Tony is falling – and the impact of being speared by Loki’s waiting cock tears a scream out of his throat.

His lover hoisted him back up again with strong hands before he could draw breath, eyes fractured with a lust that could almost be mistaken as despair. ‘Anthony, _breathe._ ’

‘Ohgodplease. PLEASE don’t get over-ambitious with your cock in my ass.’

Loki spoke with effort. ‘You will be fine. I will not break you, quite the opposite.’

‘No I don’t want-‘ and then he is falling again, stabbed through to the centre of his being, and the sensation of being filled by Loki is both a tender and terrible thing. The only outlet he has is to throw back his head and let some of the frantic heat within him escape – hot and breathy, inarticulate moans that sound so out of place that they surely do not come from him.

Loki continues hoisting him up each time he falls, his mouth tracing wet trails along the exposed planes of Tony’s chest as he murmurs mindless encouragements. The gravity helps, the stretch and the burn of it resides, and after a time Tony rides through worst of his fears and emerges victorious, eyes bright with unshed tears.

And just like that the ride becomes _magnificent._

‘Higher,’ he grunts as Loki lifts him up again. ‘Higher.’

The god hoists him aloof akin to an offering onto himself. ‘Fall onto me, Stark. I will catch you.’

It seemed a promise. And a lie.

Tony lets go, and it feels as if he is plummeting forever, stabbed forever in a loop of pure sensation and raw invasion, giving himself to a god.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is probably a weird place to advertise, but I'm a clueless technophobe - no make that clueless, period, so here goes: 
> 
> I'm looking for a beta / plot chewer for a Tony/Loki fic - someone who’s either knowledgeable or very interested in corporate crimes such as money laundering. Probably for a 15k-20k words multi-chaptered arc. Its not a story I'd dare to start until I have someone on board, so... anyone interested in talking over things? Cookies? Porn? Fake testimonials? 
> 
> Probably a long shot in the dark, but I like long shots. Long shots are awesome. 
> 
> Thanks for looking through my rambles! 
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


	16. Out there beyond ideas of wrong and right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter of Iced Mint Tea + Sympathy will be posted tomorrow. Stay tuned! <3

 

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

_Out there beyond ideas of wrong and right, there is a field. I will meet you there – RUMI_

 

16

Loki refused to be content when he pulled Tony’s first release from him and ended up using him three times within the eye of that storm, pushing his mortal down into the snow and swallowing Tony’s frustrated, pained gasping whole in his mouth as the god’s hips pounded violently into him, hard and fast and brutal.

Tony tried to fight him. ‘C-cant, let me- I cant, Loki _please!’_

‘Yes yes you can, yes you can,’ the god commanded, desperation and something profoundly ruined in his expression as his lips fluttered frantically all over Tony’s face, cold butterfly kisses an unbearable contrast against the firm and the pitiless stroking of his cock, the immovable weight of his fingers on Tony's wrist, locking him down in the snow. ‘A little more. Just a little _more,_ Stark _. Stark, by the nines_ you are- I _must_ have everything _, oh Stark-’_  

Loki wrung Tony’s mortal frame of every shred it could offer and left him empty and almost sick, laying on his side in the snow with his eyes closed after the god finally relinquished him. Tony had tried to be angry, especially when their last session ended up turning into some weirdo ritual straight out of an episode of Charmed – an X-rated version at any rate - and Loki had scooped up their cum and drawn complex runes on Tony’s chest, circling his arc reactor like a shark with a groan that vibrated deep from his throat.

The memory alone now made him shudder. He’d wanted to knock Loki’s hands away but something about the moment had held him in place, horrified and in pain as he was. Not that Tony could say what. And too soon he was swept back into renewed love-making, barely noticing the way the runes glistened wet and green upon his chest.

Only now, laying on his side and panting does he realize exactly how many liberties he’d allowed Loki, and Tony knows he has no more survival mechanism what so ever where the god of mischief is concerned. He could have _died,_  if he wasn't half dead Tony could have lifted his head and howled in frustration.

He was _fucked._

The mortal lay fetus-like on his side, and wrapped his cold hands around him in a miserable attempt to stop shaking. It was Loki, after a pause, who closed the distance between them.

‘Are you well, Stark?’

Tony squeezed his eyes shut to block his lover out. ‘No. G'way.’

The human willed the god to disappear, and for a while Loki stayed blissfully silent before almost hesitant fingers started stroking his back. When Tony finally he opened his eyes, it is to a face whose expression could only be described as heartbroken.

‘You are-‘ it was strange to see the god so hesitant, ‘-most satisfying to me, Anthony.’

He grunted and closed his eyes, too weary to turn away. Fuck the whole situation. And fuck him for being part of this… this… rollercoaster of absurdity for so long.

Only much later with the hindsight of years behind him would Tony look back upon this time of love-making inside the eye of a raging storm, and be able to see the moment things changed for Loki, the exact moment the god’s fluid confidence had slipped away, the moment his brows had lifted in surprise and his features become strained and self-contained. It would take many more years before Tony recalled the doubt that held Loki’s shoulders taut; the violent pulse in his neck as their bodies rose and fell against each other.

It would take many more years before he truly believed the evidence before his eyes.

For now though, all Tony was able to see was the parts of Loki that reminded him too much of himself. _Selfish._  

‘Well, that was disturbingly dangerous and not romantic,’ Tony said dusting the snow away. ‘And a bit too much like running a marathon for my tastes. Running a marathon for resurrected zombies. You want to tell me what the impromptu drawing lessons were for?’

‘Protection,’ the god revealed, not even _trying_ to spin a better lie. Lazy sod.

‘Hate to let you down, but it’s still as cold as ever.’ 

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘You know what, I don’t even care,’ Tony snapped, ‘-except I’d have appreciated the warning you were planning to use me as a black magic canvass.’

Two seconds later, he wondered why he wasn’t dead for mouthing off. But Loki didn’t even seem to notice Tony being badass and pushing etiquette boundaries. Probably because Tony was just some lowly mortal quimm. Sex toy.

He’ll show Loki one day. Motherfucker.

His lover looked unhappy, which was normal, and tired, which Tony had never seen before. ‘I shall not bother to renew the wards, if such are you think so very little of my pains.’

‘I think between the two of us, I’m the one who’s in pain,’ Tony grunted, and walked faster in a bid to put some distance between them.

Of course he knew Loki would catch up with him, hell, his lover’s legs are twice as long, but Tony was irritated and not wholly rationale, caught up in his own resentment until he was abruptly yanked back by the arm.

‘Stark,’ the god called out, a catch in his usually smooth voice that made something in Tony’s chest hurt, ‘-try to understand. Even gods have nightmares.’

Caught by the bicep, Tony swung around and instantly regretted looking into his lover’s face.  He was struck dumb by the fear he saw there. He could only stay silent as Loki continued in a voice shakier than he’d ever heard it.

‘I cannot always prevent the nature of my… dreams.   The sigils are designed to- they function as a double bolted door.‘ The look he gives Tony is inscrutable. ‘They will prevent you from entering my visions.’

Suddenly Tony thinks of Thor, of Thor’s strickened eyes and his mouth shaping the words  _prophecy,_ and of course Tony still doesn’t believe but it doesn’t stop him from being deathly afraid.

‘Tell me.’

‘Stark, I only want to-’

Tony grabbed his lover by the shoulders. ‘If you don’t tell me anything, I will never understand, and I will never accept, do you understand? Help me _know_ you.’

Loki looked pained but he acquiesced, and grew quiet under the mortal’s hands, until he was still and thoughtful as a statue.

‘I once had a terrible dream, that all the golden fruits of Idunn’s orchard rotted away, and the sweet waters of Vana-Kvísl ran black with the rot of corpses. I dreamt I saw immortal gods fall like flies around the hourglass of time, I watched Asgard crumble into the dust of time. I dreamt-’ he shook off the visions, a careless god who cared too much. ‘It does not matter. They are just dreams. Every race has a story about Revelations, Stark. Even a race of gods.’

Ok, now Tony is an official asshole. He sighed as his hands fell away. ‘I’m sorry for being a dick.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I promise. I promise I- I’ll be less of an arsehole.’ Tony crossed his arms and glared. _There._ Loki had gotten more of out him than _anyone,_ ever. Gods but please let that be enough.

The god’s mouth quirked. ‘There would not be much left of Tony Stark then.’

_‘Haha joke. I think it’s so funny.’_

The god kissed him then, languid fingers upon his neck, and brushed away the snowflakes in Tony’s hair.  ‘Let us away. There are sights I would show you, and darkness when it falls upon Jötunnheimr falls swift and treacherous. We must away ere the light grows thin.’

‘I’d walk a lot faster if it wasn’t for the suit,’ Tony grumbled. ‘Why’d you insist on it, if you were always planning to snap your fingers and make it a hothouse.’

‘Protection,’ was all Loki said again, and this time Tony kept quiet.

Their walking brought them to a snow covered vale, which would look like any other on Jötunnheimr except for the fact that it looked like some frozen construction had been abandoned or torn down a great age ago; some… _edifice,_ tall enough to blot out the sunlight, that had once been laid to waste by a terrible wrath. Giant chunks lay shattered to the ground in jagged pieces, buried beneath mounds of snow.

Loki folded his arms within his cloak like some maleficent crow, a sour look on his face. ‘Behold the fallen shades of Jötunnheimr.’

Tony peeked at him, and when no further explanation was forthcoming cleared his throat.

_‘Okaaaay,_ I’m sure we’re looking at something awesome that’s going to show itself anytime now-’ the mortal prompted as he shuffled around. Waited. Shuffled some more and finally asked blankly, ‘What are we looking at again?’

Loki regarded him without expression. ‘What do you see?’

‘Urm. Is that a trick question?’

‘A trick question. I wonder the very same myself,’ the god said softly, seeming to have forgotten his earlier question. Tony misliked the empty expression on his face. The god’s green eyes were so deep and so mysterious, Tony couldn’t really bear to examine Loki too closely for fear he would drown.

As they picked their way around Tony shook his head. ‘You brought me all the way here for - I don’t get it. All I see are giant pillars of broken _ice._

 ‘Exactly. Pillars of broken ice. Pointless. Squandered. This is my inheritance,’ Loki said bitterly. ‘Whilst Thor will ascend the throne, to the adoration of his people and all the wealth of Asgard, I shall acquire _this;_ a kingdom of dead ice – where no one would live and nothing will grow.’

_Well._ Tony stood up straighter and looked around again, paying more attention this time. A kingdom? That meant _possibilities._

‘Does that mean, Simba, that everything the light touches is yours?’

‘Do not be mocking, Stark.’

‘Mock- _why_ would you say that? It looks as if it was once a great place.’

‘I do not need your sympathy,’ Loki growled.

‘Will you take your head out of your arsehole for two seconds and listen to me? JARVIS, 3-D mapping if you please-‘

He craned his neck around, looking for clues amidst the barren, ruinous landscape. It was indeed a desolate place, and a palpable feeling of abandonment and sorrow filled the space and flittered amidst the shadows. It reminded him of elephant graveyards, bones turning into silt over the patient and forgotten years.  

But it also looked like it was once a great structure. Practically… _Babel-like._

‘What in the nines are you whirling around like a dervish for?’ Loki asked with a frown.

Tony ignored him. The fallen structures, if they were indeed pillars, would have been huge indeed. In fact-

‘Holy shit,’ Tony said, grounding to a halt once Jarvis had finished computing the angles and started sketching in the form. He stared down at the snow for several mute minutes, and up then, up _up-_

‘Stark, what in the nine h-‘

‘Babe, this castle, tower, whatever- it topped thirty stories high above ground, and at least ten underground. It used the surrounding ice _and_ those stone pillars as the mounts, likely without cement or nails, or I donno whatever you use in these lands – I think it might have been dome shaped – kind of like a – ginormous mosque. Maybe? Maybe. JARVIS, project columns and architecture fractals onsite- see these columns? The only reason they had to be made so big, was because of the support required-‘

He broke off, laughing and twirling around the 3-D holograph, bathed in the hues of blues and purples fractals. Numbers and angles dancing off the ice, and Tony _loved_ it.

He grabbed his lover’s cold hands. ‘Don’t you see? We’re standing on the grounds of a palace. _This_ is where your forefather’s used to rule Jötunnheimr from, and it’s a fucking _mountain._

For once the god allowed himself to be docilely lead around Tony’s holographic palace, content to merely stare at his lover all bemused; the near constant shadow of sadness temporarily banished from his eyes. ‘You never cease to amaze me, Stark.’

The mortal clicked his tongue. ‘It’s _Tony._ Babe, listen to me because I’m a fucking interstellar genius of the first water. This. This is _your_ kingdom, whatever you want to do with it.  You can choose o build it up for let it rot. Both options are fine. Blow it up if you like. But this, _all this is yours_. And this is- this is amazing. Whoever or whatever made this all those years ago.. they have _had_ to be amazing to make this. And you’re part of its surviving history. Maybe even the most important part.’

Loki considered him thoughtfully through oddly ancient eyes. A look out of time. ‘Such a thing pleases you.’

‘Strolling through the ruins of Babylon like a boss arm in arm with an ancient deity? You bet your knickers it does.’

He was surprised when the usually undemonstrative god placed a gentle hand on his cheek. ‘You are priceless beyond counting, Son of Stark.’

Tony batted his eyelashes. ‘Awww b'gosh, I love you too Ken doll. ’

‘I am convinced of it,’ the god said decisively, before suddenly swinging him into his arms and locking him in an embrace that was more like a cage of iron bars attempting to squeeze his lungs out of his chest.

_‘Mffffff._ Cant. _Breathe.’_

‘Were one to be king of naught but ice and darkness,’ Loki suddenly whispered into the shell of his ear, cold breath tickling Tony’s neck, ‘would you be consort to such a man?’

‘C—c-consort?’ _Consort?_

Tony could feel his jaw drop to his chest, his could feel his heart drop to his stomach as he pulled rapidly away. The god allowed this, watching him with a fixed alertness that made bells go off in his head. ‘Is that a trick question? That’s a trick question, isin’t it?’

‘Come here, my exquisite one,’ Loki suddenly says with his hands spread out and the utmost look of innocence on his face, and the cloying sweetness his words utterly bewilders Tony. _What the freaking flying fuck is this kind of talk_ , because Loki had never showed this aspect of himself until recently and it _freaked_ him out.

‘You’re wearing your armour,’ Tony suddenly felt the need to point out as he begun to back instinctively away. ‘Why are you wearing your armour?‘

‘Anthony, I can smell your panic; hear your heartbeat spiking from here.’ Loki was advancing carefully into his space; much, much too carefully. Like he was about to capture a prey.

Why did he not notice he was armoured today, as he never was all these months? Was it truly the cold? It wasn’t the cold, Loki wasn’t affected at all by cold - it was something else all along and FUCK SHIT HOLE because Tony was only now cottoning on that his lover hadn’t just brought him here for shit and giggles.

‘This is not- this has been a _really_ nice trip and all-‘ Tony begun to babble as he backed faster away from the god, ‘I mean that was some awesome sexy picnic and we took some really outstanding photos; boy I _can’t wait_ to get back to the lab and show Bruce-‘

‘I have told you before that I _want_ you, Stark, and I shall _have_ you,’ Loki suddenly growled, sharp and fey and _dangerous_ , and Tony could kick himself for the way he keeps forgetting that his lover is _not human,_ he doesn’t know why its so hard to get into his thick skull that he…And buried at the back of his skull is a sound going off like a knell, a sense of not being able to turn back.

A minute flitted away, and Tony’s brain was a frozen and useless thing because he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Finally Loki held out his arms again. ‘Anthony-‘

‘Goombye please, nice to meet you too.’ Then he turned around and ran in a random direction.

Loki called out after him with a weary sigh. ‘Stark, you are being ridiculous.’

He spun around, breathing hard, looking for options. The landscape was completely desolate – a howling, inhospitable, beautiful thing. And there was no place to run to, no place to hide. No way he could find his way back to earth without Loki’s magic.

The _fucking bastard_ had taken him out here deliberately, because there’s no fucking escape – no other Avenger, no human ability or genius that could provide an alternate. Only magic. Fucking, inimitable, _indecipherable_ magic.

Tony finds himself starting to really _hate_ magic.

‘Laugh, Tony, he said aloud to himself, teeth chattering although he hadn’t felt the cold in some time now. ‘Laugh now because its going to be fucking embarrassing if you faint, or vomit, or cry.’

Loki hadn’t chased him, but his voice bounced eerily around the ice, mockingly solicitous and reconciliatory. ‘Oh, Stark, Stark. Why are you so afraid?’

‘Hey dude. I know there’s a _huge_ cultural chasms between us, but you gotta take me back. We don’t do shit like that on earth-‘

‘Ah, but you are _not_ on earth,’ Loki’s disembowelled voice pointed out, echoed around Tony like some Sonar shit. ‘You are on Jötunnheimr, a place so sparse and desolate I do not doubt that should I have evil intentions upon you, the tears on your face would freeze before they fall and the wind would snatch the screams from mouth as you uttered them.’ The god paused, as if giving Tony a moment for all of it to sink in. ‘But I have no such intentions. Will you not believe me, the lover you had surrendered so sweetly to scarce but an hour ago?’

His heart pounded, warring between longing and distrust and fear. ‘You mean the lover that almost killed me with sex an hour ago, yeah I remember him.’

The god sighed. ‘Stark. If we are to do this, you really must learn to trust me.’

_Like a hole in the head._

‘Trust you to do _what?_ What do you _want,_ Loki?’

He finally saw the god leaning against a pillar of ice, his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. ‘It is a simple enough thing. Are you ready at last to listen?’

 Tony forced himself to stand still. ‘Yeah, hit me.’

‘Come here first.’

_No way in hell,_ Tony said to himself grimly, but he found himself going forward anyways, and wasn’t that a riot?

‘I have a suit,’ he threatened once they were only a feet apart. Loki was still leaning against the broken pillar with studied inconsequence, eyes demurely lowered and his fingers tracing idle patterns on the ice.

Finally he lifted his head and when he spoke, and it is with a voice that rippled with dark waters and eyes that monetarily flicker red. ‘You see my dear human, you have quite utterly ensnared me. I, the original tempter of all things. I, the one who usually lies in wait.’

Tony blinked and tried not to shiver. Melodrama much?  ‘Uh. I like you too, babe. That’s why we have what we have, and nothing needs to be.. set in stone just yet you know? Formality’s dead, we should rock out to the times. I can show you how.’

‘That is generous indeed Stark. But you see, I will only settle for _eternity.'_

Tony blinked. He thought he heard the words, but the moment didn’t register.

His lover stared at him, a falcon’s gaze poised for kill. ‘Well?’

Loki seemed to be saying something, but Tony couldnt for the life of him comprehend what was coming out of his mouth.

‘Come again? I don’t think I heard you babe, I think there was wax in my ears or something.’

For reasons he couldn't phantom his words made Loki opened his mouth and utter a _very_ human scream of frustration and disgust of the kind he’d seen Pepper make before.

_‘W-what? What’d I do now?!’_

*

 


	17. Now I know

 

 

**ICED MINT TEA + SYMPATHY**  

 

17

‘Odin take you, Stark, for your thick and imprudent skull. I am asking you to marry me!’

For a good minute nobody blinked. Then:

 _‘You don’t_ \- you-‘ Tony didn’t sit down so much as drop to the ground, stunned beyond measure. ‘You don’t know what marriage is, I’ve- you- you’re _Loki.’_

The god of mischief ran a weary hand over his forehead. ‘Believe me Stark, the sheer immensity of the irony is not lost on me. Fate herself has played me for a hand that-‘ he broke off and shook his head. ‘– but it is no exigency. A river rerouted will yet flow to the sea.’

A dullness, like being hit on the head with a blunt object. _Shock,_ Tony realised.

‘I need. I need a _really_ big drink.’

He tried to push himself off the snow, but his arms gave way for some reason and he sank back down. With uncharacteristic meekness he decided it might be prudent to stay awhile longer before he managed to embarrass himself.

‘Now is not the time for jest, Anthony.’ Loki straightened, the horns on his helm making him look impossibly tall. ‘I require an answer from you.’

‘What exactly, are you- proposing?’ Tony squawks, attempting to backpedal for all his worth. ‘We don’t exactly have similar cultures, you could be on vastly different-‘

 _Planets, they were from different planets!_  

He broke off, swallowed and continued. ‘-different pages.’

‘I would tie you in your migardian matrimony. Bind you to me for life.’ Loki’s eyes fracture even more, and he looked more lost than Tony had ever seen him. ‘I wish it so. I would not lose you, Anthony, not to your trifling lifespan or the brittle shell of your mortality. Not for a reason so… easily remedied.’

‘You want-‘ Tony’s voice cracks at the look in Loki’s eyes – maybe he even hyperventilates a little, he’s not sure. He’s sure he’ll wake up soon from the most surreal Jane Austen dream in the history of dreaming, ever; but Loki looks too broken for it to be a dream, his very skin seems to ripple, as if the body containing him is unable to hold in the oceans within him. 

He was _not_ getting a fucking panic attack. Not now. Not here on an alien _planet._

_‘Stark.’_

‘Give me a minute!’ The mortal snapped, and buried his head in his hands.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck fuck fuck_ this was not happening. Not happening at all; everything was  fine as it is, they’d had _that talk_ , and Loki had backed off on the apple, and things were going to go back to normal-

At one point of time, Tony Stark thought he’d marry Pepper. That’s they’d exchange rings and go house shopping together and argue in the limo on the way to work. That they wouldn’t have kids, but they’d have a talking barbeque set and a nice big dog and eat breakfast in bed on Sundays, hogging each other’s covers.

And then there were points when Tony Stark thought he’d never get married, because marriage meant guilt and shackles and should only be left to people who wanted children. Responsible people, people who did their own laundry and separated their colours, and of which Tony is definitely not a member of.

‘Stark.’

‘I said _can it_ for a second, Loki!’ The mortal shook his head and looked around him. Breath. _Think._ OK stop thinking and just _breathe._

‘You are overwrought.’

 He raised bewildered eyes at the god. ‘Why me? I mean. I’m human.’

‘Precisely because you are human, you fool, or do you still not grasp the very rationale of my doing this?‘

Instead of answering, Tony started to laugh. ‘Hey. Hey. Imagine if you got here just a little earlier and proposed to Hilter. Or the Queen of England . Or James Dean, wouldn’t that be funny-’

‘Stark. You are delirious.’

He held up a warning hand when Loki made to draw nearer. ‘Don’t. I’m fine. I’m getting up now, see?’

Except he couldn’t- or rather, he stood up too fast and his legs went completely nerveless and if not for the quick arm that caught him, curling around Tony’s waist and lifting him as if he were was matchstick Tony would be face down with a mouthful of snow.

Loki arches an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Are you _fainting_ on me, Stark?’

‘Fuck you. This is a manly swoon.’

The god’s face clouds over in contempt. ‘You are an infant.’

 _‘You’re_ the one that’s robbing the cradle. I’m only thirty-eight years young, you’re over two thousand years old. Where I come from, an age gap this big is _scandalous.’_

But Loki grits his teeth and bites out; ‘Do not tarry, Anthony, or do you need me to get on bended knee before you will accept?’

He didn’t expect to ever hear that from the over-proud god of mischief and lies, and so Tony cocks his head and decides to calls his bluff.

‘I don’t know, Loki. W _ill_ you get on bended knee, for a member of the race you so despise?’

There is a slight pause, a flare of something too old for Tony to identify, for he thinks such depths of emotion would only be born if it had time enough to simmer, long before his ancestors evolved - followed by a calmness that makes his heart stutter with what was to come.

Then Loki’s eyes narrows and catches his gaze, trapping it like a moth beneath a red-hot pin, and Tony realises there and then that he’d just made a big mistake.

‘Very well, Stark. I will _kneel_. Not to Midgard, for I do not acknowledge the place from whence you came. But you, I wish to possess, and therefore to you and you alone, shall Loki do this.’

And Tony watches in silent horror, victim of his own irascibility and over-cleverness as Loki sinks upon one knee with the grace of a fallen angel, or maybe Lucifer, because he thinks he can hear the crusts of earths moving and the groaning of continents; whole streams of destiny altering in subtle ways by virtue of that that one, seemingly trite action.

When Loki raises his head to speak, it is with the voice of something ancient and terrifying - a voice that seemingly rings through the universe, and Tony somehow knows that the very earth they stood on recognised this voice - that whole rivers and mountain ranges rumbled and rustled to it, and Tony might not even be listening to English or even a language, although he understands the weight of every syllable with a clarity never achieved in his life before.

**‘Now doth all the Nine Realms look upon us to mark this moment, Anthony Stark, _Son of Earth_ , and Time herself marvel at how ye, most trivial mortal hath tamed a god, for Loki, son of Laufey and Odin yet son of none - Loki, God of Mischief and walker of the dark spaces between worlds – Loki, whose fate lies beholden to none _-_ doth bend his knee upon _thy_ favour, and begs leave to espouse thee.’**

And then he rises, somehow taller than ever; red of eye and demonic of countenance, the golden horns upon his helm transformed to stark, silver bone and the midnight blue of Loki’s skin flickers with ever-changing runes as if his very skin bore the writings of the fate of the world upon it.

Thus did the God advance upon him and say in a voice like a peal of thunder; 

**‘And now ye shall look upon the true face of a _God_ and say onto me, Anthony – _does’t thou accept me,_ or nay?’**

[FINI]

 

The truth  
that You desire me,  
that You long for me  
in the heart of my heart  
this intimate secret now I know.  
  
Why You make me cry,  
this intimate secret now I know.  
  
In this act of light and shadow  
why You play hide and seek  
in the heart of my heart  
this intimate secret now I know.  
  
All day amidst myriads actions,  
in infinite disguises  
You keep beckoning me  
why so - this intimate secret now I know.

RUMI

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends _**‘Iced Mint Tea + Sympathy’**_ – the 3rd story in the Flawed Design cycle. 
> 
> All stories contained within the Flawed Design Cycle are largely unbetaed: their mistakes accrue to the author alone, and all characters belongs to Marvel etc.
> 
> All poetry & quotes by the great 13th century Sufi poet & mystic RUMI.  
> Passages of Loki’s soliloquies are from Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem ‘Divine Comedy’ (chp. 6), and ‘Faust’ (1806), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (chp. 14).
> 
> Coming up next in the Flawed Design universe - _**‘Anvil of Lies’.**_ Stay tuned! 
> 
>  
> 
> As usual, if you enjoyed this, do leave a tip in the reviews section... this series is a huge undertaking and a high cost endevour for me personally, so just a few words from you makes a huge impact for me. :) Concrit welcomed and appreciated. 
> 
> To get updates of the new story when it comes out, remember to subscribe to the Flawed Design Series, [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/41245).
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


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